


All the Soldiers Say

by lusilly



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: (kind of), Bucky Barnes & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Bucky Barnes & Tony Stark Friendship, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Canon Compliant, Canon Disabled Character, Domestic Avengers, Exposure therapy, Gen, M/M, Post-Civil War (Marvel), Protective Steve Rogers, Tony Feels, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, disabled Rhodey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-16
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-07-24 08:28:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 64,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7501191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lusilly/pseuds/lusilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Those trigger words,” interrupted Nat, speaking over Steve, “are conditioned into his psyche. And conditioning can be broken."</p><p>--</p><p>After the massive fallout of Civil War, Steve and his team retreat to a secret base. Bucky is with them, and they aren't completely sure what to do with him, to be honest; they can't risk him on missions, not really, until he beats the trigger words conditioned into his brain. Nat has an idea.</p><p>It all goes pretty much OK, until Steve gets a late-night drunk dial from Tony.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> SO! This fic started off as one thing, and then somehow suddenly morphed into a whole other thing. It is totally in-continuity with the end of Civil War as it stands, except that Bucky didn't stay in Wakanda under ice. The first part of this fic is character-driven, basically about Bucky and how the rest of the team learn to understand him, and how he learns to understand them - and himself. The second part will be plot-driven. Tony is there, as is a HYDRA assassin, a ski lodge in Colorado, and a secret bunker. It's a wild ride.
> 
> As we go I'll update tags to reflect later chapters.
> 
> Ship tags mean: there will be #canon #confirmed Stucky (eventually), but Nat & Bucky and Sam & Bucky are platonic. Developing friendships there.
> 
> Will update regularly, weekly or bi-weekly probably.

* * *

 

 

_Marc Fischer, 1997_

 

* * *

 

           In a compound somewhere deep underground in the Northern California wilderness, the man formerly known as the Winter Soldier squinted down at the smartphone in his hand.

            “It says, ‘Create a passcode.’” He looked up at Sam. “A passcode for what?”

            Sam watched Bucky suspiciously. He had not yet mastered the art of telling when Bucky was joking (he, in fact, suspected that Bucky didn’t joke at all, and that Steve’s occasional bout of raucous laughter was more out of pity than genuine amusement) – but he found it highly unlikely that a trained assassin and master of most technologies necessary for such a job wouldn’t know why an iPhone required a passcode.

            “It’s for the phone,” he answered, deciding to give Bucky the benefit of the doubt. He pointed to the device in Bucky’s hand and explained, “So none of us can get in and peep at your stuff.”

            Bucky frowned. “I thought Black Widow already had these triple-encrypted against security and detection-”

            “Yeah, sure, all the sensitive stuff is safe. But this is just so, you know, we can’t go through your selfies or message girls on your Tinder account or something.”

            Bucky already had his mouth open, presumably to ask what Tinder was, but Sam just shook his head, unwilling to drop that can of worms on Bucky right this very moment. “Look, it’s just a simple numeric password. In your line of work you had to have a lot of those, right?”

            Bucky’s thumb hovered anxiously over the touchpad. Quietly, he said, “Never had one I got to pick.”

            In the weeks it had been since he and Steve had returned from Wakanda, where King T’Challa had, as a gesture of goodwill after hunting him so viciously, willingly provided Bucky the best medical and psychological care at his disposal, Bucky had been quiet. Sam knew that Steve had at first tried to get Bucky to bunk in Steve's room, but Bucky had refused. That was a conversation Sam had pretended he hadn’t overheard, one held in low, stubborn voices in the kitchen.

            “I’m just – concerned for you,” Steve had murmured, palms pressed against the countertop in a wide upside-down V. “If something happens, I want to be there.”

            “You don’t mean _something_. You mean, if I lose it,” replied Bucky, without shying away from the obvious. “I’m not being difficult, Steve, I know better than you do that it’s a possibility.”

            “Fine, then I don’t see why you wouldn’t want me there to make sure you don’t hurt anybody – including yourself.”

            “Because putting yourself, _asleep_ , in the same dark room as a super-assassin, is just plain stupid, Steve. Come on.”

            Letting out a low breath of frustration, Steve had shot back, “And the alternative is?”

            “Find the deepest, most secure room in this place,” answered Bucky simply. “Lock me in. Every night.”

            What Sam, who was trained for reactions to trauma such as these, might have done would’ve been to sit down, de-escalate, and calmly tell Bucky that what he’s really doing is locking his memories and fears about himself up in his own mind, and that isolation does more damage than healing.

            What Steve did was say, “Well, fuck, Bucky, you really expect me to lock you up like a prisoner again? I don’t _give_ a damn if it’s the safest thing-” which had, of course, spawned an argument that ended only when the pot on the stove boiled over and Bucky left to announce throughout the secure compound that dinner was ready, courtesy of Captain Rogers. He said it with a sarcastic little sneer on his face that Sam politely pretended not to notice, and to which Wanda reacted nervously, awkwardly fidgeting amidst the tension between the two men.

            That dinner had been boiled cabbage and something Steve had called corned beef, but which did not taste like any corned beef Sam had ever had. You could take the kid out of 1945, he guessed, but you couldn’t take the 1945 out of the kid.

            But despite all the training to deal with post-traumatic stress in vets, all the empathy with the condition Bucky was in – despite the swell of pride and compassion and grief that a former POW should evoke – somehow Sam still felt like Bucky was a cardboard cutout of a man, and try as he might to share Steve’s worry and love, he just couldn’t get his own heart to break. “Whatever, man,” said Sam, with a curt shrug. “Just use your birthday, that’s what most people do.”

            For a moment longer Bucky thought about this, his eyes lifted just above the phone’s screen. It struck Sam that he should get Steve, because he was absolutely not prepared to deal with the damn Winter Soldier getting all weepy over failing to remember his own birthday.

            But something must’ve clicked, because Bucky carefully typed six digits into the phone, then moved on. A second later, bewildered, he asked, “It wants my fingerprint too? Why does it need my fingerprint?”

            Sam dragged a hand down his face.

            Walking Bucky through his reentrance into the real world had been excruciating. Steve, at least, had been _tabula rasa_ , a complete black slate whose knowledge was drawn entirely from a pre-1945 world. Bucky, on the other hand, had the occasional random moment of clarity and perfect understanding, moments in which it became painfully obvious what kind of information had been uploaded into his head, and what for.

            Once, when Sam and Steve were talking about a certain dictator of a far-off country, Bucky spoke up, poking with disinterest at his oatmeal. “No,” he said mildly. “He’s dead. His wife’s been running the country for the past fifteen years.”

            There wasn’t a weapon any of them could bring to the table which he couldn’t understand well enough to use after a few moments’ worth of explanation. When Nat had brought their new commlinks, he’d lifted an earpiece between two fingers and scrutinized it carefully, then asked, “Are there satellite scramblers, or we using external dampeners? This kind of tech can get hijacked as long as the other guys have advance warning.”

            Unfazed, Nat had replied coolly, “Then don’t give them any warning, _Soldat_ ,” which apparently to Bucky had not registered as a threat, because he asked questions for ten more minutes until he knew their communications inside and out. Probably better than Nat did; not that he was snooping, but Sam had passed by Bucky’s room once (Steve had met Bucky halfway and placed Bucky’s room in civilian quarters, which could be locked down to survive a firefight unscathed) and noticed a commlink, taken apart to tiny pieces, by the side of the assassin’s bed.

            And Bucky could do almost everything one-handed, from piloting the jet to handling weapons to collecting his hair in a low ponytail at the back of his head. Sam wondered about that at first, but then figured it had to be a logistical thing: the arm had been mechanical, and probably could’ve been fried by an EMP. HYDRA wouldn’t want their number one agent rendered useless by something as simple as a target who was armed.

            “Look,” said Sam, reaching over to pluck the phone from Bucky’s one hand. Holding the phone before Bucky’s face, he tapped a few buttons. “See? It don’t need your fingerprint, that’s only if you want the extra security.”

            “I already have a passcode.”

            “Yeah, well, knowing you it’s gonna be something like, Steve could figure out, or something.”

            Bucky frowned at Sam, as if he hadn’t understood. “I don’t understand,” he said, because, and Sam wasn’t sure if this was Bucky Barnes or the Winter Soldier, but the man had no time to waste being indirect. “Why am I making it so Steve can’t access my phone?”

            “I don’t know, man – privacy.”

            Taking the phone back from Sam, a hint of something like challenge entered Bucky’s voice. “I don’t have anything to hide,” he said, with finality. “Not from him.”

            Sam rolled his eyes back into his head in contempt. Again, he could not tell where the guilt of the Winter Soldier ended and the undying commitment to Steve began.

            It wasn’t that Sam resented Bucky, or his ride-or-die ‘til-the-end-of-the-line allegiance to Captain America (Captain America? Sam wasn’t so sure anymore, because without the shield Steve was just kind of a really old, really strong regular dude) – but, come on. It would seem over the top to anybody. They were devoted to each other, defined by each other, one constantly checking on the other, as _if_ Steve needed anyone looking out for him, much less the goddamn Winter Soldier. It was like Steve seemed to forget about everybody else in a room when Bucky was around. Which, sure, Sam understood. Childhood friends, war buddies, the dead soldier come back to life. Steve had risked everything to save Bucky, and Sam had helped him.

            He’d just underestimated how fucking annoying the guy would be.

            It wasn’t just the guilt complex, the odd flashes of hyper-competence, or the reluctant and uneasy way Bucky kept asking questions about a history during which he was in the freezer. There was the fact that he was shockingly bad with names, failing even two months in to remember which one was Clint and which one was Scott (and which one of them had a daughter, which caused further confusion when Steve patiently explained that they both did); there was his weird relationship with Nat, with whom he refused point-blank to train or spar for reasons that Sam could not discern other than he didn’t want to get his ass kicked by a woman.

            Then there was that incident when Bucky had used a few words that hadn’t been acceptable for half a century now, but Sam had seen the distinctly uncomfortable look in Steve’s eye when he explained to Bucky why those terms were out of fashion now and had been reminded, briefly, that Bucky wasn’t the only one from 1945. Not to say Steve was prejudiced, because he wasn’t, and even if he had been Director Fury would’ve sorted that right out before he ever put Cap on the Avengers – but old-fashioned habits die hard, and Sam had thought Steve just a _little_ too sympathetic to Bucky’s confusion. Bucky had apologized, this was true, and Sam didn’t want to hold this kind of thing over a guy’s head because, yeah, no shit HYDRA hadn’t updated their weapon with the latest politically correct term, those guys were literal Nazis.

            Still. You look at a guy differently, once you hear certain things come out of his mouth.

            There was all of this, and there was Bucky’s weird relationship with Wanda, which nobody but Sam seemed to think was weird. He could speak Sokovian with her; he could speak Russian with Nat, but the one time he murmured something at her, she replied coolly and he turned slightly red and hadn’t tried again since. Wanda, though, brightened every time she got the chance to speak her native language, which, sure, fine, but it was already at the point that Sam might walk into a room and Bucky would mutter something to Wanda in Sokovian, and she would burst into giggles. A girl barely out of her teens, sure, Sam could take that; a grown-ass super soldier ex-assassin? Sam had a problem with being giggled at by a dude like that.

            Steve didn’t seem to think it was a problem – on the contrary, he seemed to be pleased that Bucky was bonding with someone other than himself. Clint too had no objections, despite taking over as the resident team dad. “Whatever,” he’d said, brushing off Sam’s concerns. “Did you ever stop to think they actually have more in common than her and any of us?”

            Which was all well and good – in terms of HYDRA experimentation and, like, Eastern European origins or something, Sam guessed, this made some sense – but then the two of them started spending a little too much time together, and Sam tried to be an open-minded kind of guy but Wanda was barely twenty, and Bucky was ninety-fucking-eight.

            “No, no, that’s not fair,” Clint had said, when Sam pointed this out. “He was frozen for most of that. He and Cap – solid, you know, thirty-ish.”

            Sam shrugged, seriously. “It’s still creepy.”

            “You just don’t like the guy,” sighed Clint. “You’re seeing things that ain’t there. I think it’s good for them both. They could both use somebody to relate to.”

            Again: fine. Maybe Sam was looking a little too hard into things. He probably could’ve let that one go, had it not been for an occasion about a week after that, when Sam was minding his own damn business, fresh off a sparring session with Scott, and happened to pass by Bucky’s room. The door was swung wide open. Glancing inside, more out of curiosity than familiar suspicion, Sam kept walking, then stopped, then did a double-take, then asked out loud, “What the hell is going on here?”

            Bucky lay prone on his bed, neck limp and eyes half open, while Wanda sat near his head at the food of the bed. Red sparks glowed and twisted around from her fingers to his head. She looked up at Sam not with surprise or guilt, but a sternness in her expression he was unused to. “Shh,” she said, lifting one hand to put her index finger before her mouth. “He asked me to do this.”

            The upshot of all of this was that Sam went to Steve, who went to Clint, who sat down with Wanda to gently explain to her that it wasn’t okay to use her powers on anyone’s mind at all – she seemed bewildered, and kept insisting, “He _wanted_ me to do it, he said he needed it!” – while Steve knocked on Bucky’s closed door and said cautiously, “Buck, are you alright? We gotta talk.”

            When Bucky let them in, he sat on the side of the bed as Steve pulled up the same chair Wanda had been sitting in earlier, and Sam stood with his arms folded by the door. “I understand that it’s – hard,” said Steve, _too_ gently. Sam resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “I know you there’s a lot of stuff you don’t want in your head anymore. And Wanda can mess with heads, sure, but she doesn’t know her powers well enough yet. She could do some real damage.”

            “Damage?” echoed Bucky, looking up at Steve miserably. “Oh, well. That’d be new.”

            Sam might’ve laughed, had he not been annoyed as fuck.

             “I’m serious,” said Steve cautiously. “She’s rattled around in my head before, back when she was with the bad guys.” Bucky let out a little grunt of contempt and amusement at this, but Steve ignored it. “It’s dangerous. She can implant memories, manipulate them-”

            Bucky watched his single flesh-and-blood hand. “Erase them?”

            Steve paused. There was disappointment on his face. “Sure,” he continued, lowering his voice. “But what happens when her hand slips, and instead of erasing the Winter Soldier, she erases Bucky Barnes?”

            Bucky’s eyes were heavy and drawn, dark bags hanging beneath them. “I _am_ the Winter Soldier, Steve.”

            “You know what I mean.”

            With a twitch of his face and a half-scowl, Bucky looked away and muttered, “At least then I’d know…”

            Loudly, Sam asked, “What was that?”

            Bucky didn’t look up at him. He closed his eyes, then dropped his head slightly. “Nothing,” he murmured. “I didn’t mean that.”

            There was a beat of silence. Then Steve reached out, and he put a hand on the other man’s leg. “Bucky,” he said. “I understand. I know that you’re just looking for something, anything, to keep you grounded. But – it doesn’t have to be fake memories. _I’m_ here.”

            In one fluid movement, Bucky swept Steve’s hand off of him, lifting his gaze to meet Steve’s with an ugly look on his face. “They weren’t _fake_ memories,” he said, his voice burning. “You know what it’s like not to – to know things, in your head, to _know_ things happened, but not be able to remember how?”

            “I’m _here_ , Buck-”

            “I’m not _talking_ about you, Steve!”

            This was the first time Sam had ever really heard Bucky raise his voice, and it took him slightly aback how unlike the dangerous, fine-tuned creature the Winter Soldier he seemed. On the contrary, he sounded – well, kind of…wrecked.

            Before Steve could respond, Bucky continued fiercely, “How about my sister, Steve, how about her? Can you bring her back? I can remember her mostly, her face, her birthday, I remember she had a daughter, a little girl-” with a jolt, Sam was reminded of Bucky asking Steve again which one of them had a baby girl, Scott or Clint, “-but – I…”

            Bucky stopped, miserable. He forced his next few words out of a captive, unwilling mouth, anger at himself burning in his lips and tongue.

            “I can’t remember her name,” he said, like pulling needles out of his throat.

            There was a painful silence.

            Then, disregarding Bucky swatting his hand away a few minutes ago, Steve leaned forward and took strong hold of his friend’s shoulder. He ducked his face slightly to catch Bucky’s gaze, then looked into his eyes and said firmly: “Your sister’s name was Rebecca. You called her Becca, but she hated it when anybody else did it.” He paused. Bucky refused to meet his gaze. “Her daughter’s name was Rachel.” He hesitated again, then took his hand away from Bucky’s shoulder and leaned back. “Her dad was KIA in ’42. After you shipped out.” Bucky looked up, something flashing in his eyes, but Steve shook his head. “She never told you that. She didn’t want you to know.”

            Bucky watched him. “How did you find out?”

            Steve gave a very small laugh. “She came to my shows, Buck.”

            There was another pause. Bucky stared at a patch on the floor.

            Steve added, “You remember that photo of Rachel that Rebecca sent you? You kept it in your pack where the other guys kept letters from their girls back home?”

            All at once, finally, a crack of a smile appeared on Bucky’s face. He gave a little shrug. “She _was_ my girl back home,” he said. “The only one I cared about, anyway.”

            Silence settled between them. Sam stood there, waiting; Steve said nothing, and Sam gave the slightest shake of his head, clenching his jaw.

            “Look, Bucky,” began Steve, finally. “The point is…if you’re having a hard time, letting Wanda mess with your head doesn’t have to be your first resort. I can help you too.”

            Bucky didn’t say anything. There was a long silence, wherein Bucky began to pick at a loose thread on the bedsheet beside him. A minute passed, and then Steve got to his feet. He paused just long enough to lay his hand on his friend’s shoulder, then let him go and turned around to leave.

            Just before Steve passed Sam, Bucky spoke.

            “HYDRA gave her those powers,” he said, his voice just slightly stronger than it had been. “I don’t think – she knew who they really were, when they recruited her. Or they didn’t know about her.” When Steve glanced around, one eyebrow raised, Bucky added, “She’s Jewish. So.”

            There was a pause, then Bucky, awkwardly, restarted.

            “Anyway,” he said, “what I’m saying is, HYDRA did that to her. They gave her those abilities.” He met Steve’s gaze, determination in the watery blue of his eyes. “She needs to know her power can be used for good. And, Steve…” he paused, seizing hold of Steve’s gaze, “…so do I.”

            There was a silence. Sam saw Steve’s jaw jump; then Captain America turned and left the room, jerking his head at Sam to signal for him to follow. Sam spared one glance for Bucky, who did not look at him, and then followed Steve out.

            Without pausing outside of Bucky’s room, Sam followed Steve straight into the kitchen, where Steve went to the fridge and asked, “You don’t think Nat’s going to bring pizza tonight, is she?” and then Sam asked, “Man, what the hell?”

            Steve looked around from the fridge, a look of feigned innocence on his face. “What?”

            “You know what,” answered Sam lowly. He flung his arm out, gesturing back towards Bucky’s bedroom. “You didn’t need me in there,” he said.

            Steve considered this for a moment. He closed the refrigerator. “No, maybe I didn’t,” he finally agreed. “But I wanted you there.”

            “Oh, yeah, sure, I see what you’re doing,” replied Sam, shaking his head angrily. Despite himself, despite his absolute trust in Steve and the knowledge that somewhere, deep down, this grudge against the Winter Soldier has _got_ to be petty, he felt sick to his stomach. He felt betrayed.

            “Look,” continued Sam. “I thought we were going to go in there, sit the guy down, and set him straight. No more creepy magic-bonding with the seventeen-year-old-”

            Steve began, “Wanda’s nineteen-”

            “-but instead,” Sam continued, raising his voice over Steve’s, “you bring me in there – for what? Couple’s therapy?”

            There was a short pause. Steve watched Sam, and the disappointment in his expression was, Sam thought, only really there to cover up the slight shame behind it. As the silence dragged on, Sam refused to speak, demanding an explanation. The two of them locked into a waiting game, each banking on the other’s willingness to admit they were wrong, each failing to recognize the other’s stubbornness.

            But it was Steve who flinched first. “Listen,” he said finally, his voice low. “I just – I know that you have your problems with him. And that’s valid. But I wanted you to see him as a real person. As a human being who’s working through his issues and baggage, just like the rest of us.”

            “Speak for yourself,” Sam shot back.

            “Come _on_ , Sam,” Steve said; he had dropped the disappointed façade, favoring instead now a sense of desperation, as if Sam was the unreasonable one here. “Just – imagine your best friend in the world. The guy you know had your back more times than you can count. He comes back from the war, and he’s messed up worse than anybody you know, and you’re telling me you’re not going to make damn sure he comes to your meetings? Make sure you get him the help he needs?”

            “No, Steve,” said Sam, “because number one, I’m a professional and professionals don’t counsel their goddamn _friends_ , and number two, _my_ guy never made it home from the war, remember?”

            This hit Steve like a physical blow, arresting him in place, breath tight in his chest and a look of slight horror on his face. Sam met his gaze, hard, for another second, then turned to leave.

            Immediately Steve was behind him. “Sam-” he began, reaching out for Sam’s shoulder; but Sam shook him off, batting away Steve’s touch without turning around.

            Steve let him go.

            Later that night, Nat did end up bringing pizza. While she conversed with Wanda, Clint, and Scott, Sam glowered over his slices, and Steve pensively stared at a slice of pepperoni for a solid fifteen minutes. Eventually, Nat nudged Steve. “Where’s Barnes?” she asked.

            He started slightly at her touch. She raised an eyebrow. “In his room,” he answered. “He needs some rest.”

            Once everyone was more or less finished, Nat took a plate with three slices (she picked the olives off, and Sam had to wonder how she knew that the Winter Soldier didn’t like olives on his pizza) and went to Bucky’s room. Outside, she knocked on the door. “Barnes,” she said. “Barnes.” There was no reply; she paused, then said, “ _Soldat_.”

            Sam pretended not to hear. He saw Steve raise his head slightly, although he didn’t turn to look down the hall.

            Nat knocked on the door again. “ _Smírno, soldat_!”

            She said something else in Russian, something Sam didn’t understand. A moment later, the door opened. Bucky said something which also might have been in Russian, but he spoke so quietly that Sam couldn’t hear him at all. When Nat replied, her voice was lowered as well.. There was a slight hint of amusement in her voice, and she gave a little laugh and continued, “ _Umm_ , _zhelaniye…_ ”

            The glass in Steve’s hand shattered. Sam glanced up at him, a very distinct look of _what-the-fuck_ on his face. Steve just stared at him, then down the hall, his jaw clenched.

            Bucky said something else, and this time Sam was sure it wasn’t English, then the door slammed shut.

            When Nat returned to the kitchen, she was triumphantly empty-handed, but before Sam could open his mouth to say anything Steve got to his feet with such force his seat clattered across the smooth floor.

            “What the hell was that?” demanded Steve.

            His abrupt reaction wiped the smug look off Nat’s face, but without blinking she shot back, “I just brought _your_ friend dinner, why? Mad he wouldn’t talk to you?”

            “I _heard_ you,” said Steve. “I heard you say that word. What is wrong with you, Natasha?”

            “Oh, please,” replied Nat, rolling her eyes as Sam slowly realized what was happening, that he _had_ recognized one of the words she said. “If you’d stop helicopter parenting him for two minutes, maybe he’d be able to work without you once in a while.”

            “This is not a game, Nat!”

            “It’s not? Seemed pretty fun to me.”

            “You can’t go around casually dropping those trigger words around him. You can’t do that, Nat. You don’t get to. Those trigger words-”

            “Those trigger words,” interrupted Nat, speaking loudly and harshly over Steve, “are conditioned into his psyche.” She stared at Steve, her gaze boring into his eyes. “And conditioning can be broken. You can’t protect him forever, Steve. The Winter Soldier had enough handlers that there must be others out there who know those words, and I can’t trust a guy who could go berserk on us at any minute.”

            “We’re working on it,” said Steve.

            “No,” said Nat, “you’re avoiding it, because it’s hard and it hurts your feelings.”

            Steve watched Natasha. Whether the worry in his eyes was for himself or Bucky, Sam couldn’t tell, nor was he even completely sure there was a difference anymore.

            “So,” said Steve, finally relenting. “What do you suggest we do?”

            “Exposure therapy,” said Sam.

            Both Steve and Nat looked around.

            To Nat, Sam added, “That’s what you’re talking about, right? Unpack it all, piece by piece. Make it not dangerous anymore. Right?”

            “This is HYDRA,” said Steve, more to Nat than Sam. “It’s not like you can put him in a forty-five minute therapy session once a week and expect him to be better by the end of the month.”

            “Nobody said that, Steve,” said Nat. “And we’re not exactly amateurs.”

            “Oh, really? Since when are you a trained trauma counselor, Natasha?”

            “I’m not,” said Nat simply. Nodding at Sam, she said, “He is.”

            Steve whipped around, and there was a rush of emotion rising behind his eyes, worry eclipsed by a profound, shaking anger.

            “Hold on,” said Sam, holding up his hands quickly before Steve could open his mouth to retort. “Look, Steve, you know I don’t love the guy. But it’s like Nat said – your pal Buck is never going to be able to play with the big kids if he doesn’t get this under control.” He shrugged, watching Steve. “We might as well try.”

            Still, Steve said nothing. Sam could see his internal struggle mapped out across his face: his tight lips, the crease of his brow, those narrowed, anxious eyes.

            To Sam’s surprise, Nat was the one who reached out to place a comforting hand on Steve’s arm. “Hey,” she said. “You’re not the only one who wants to see him get better.”

            Sam wasn’t exactly sure what this meant, but Steve just stared down the hall towards Bucky’s room for a moment, then looked back at Nat, the uncertainty in his gaze coalescing into a dense sense of determination.

            He hesitated for one moment, and then he gave a jerky, half-hearted nod.

 


	2. Chapter 2

            The secret base – Nat didn’t mention why it was secret or what it used to be used for, but the basement had the look of somewhere hastily cleared, evidence torn from walls and destroyed without a second thought, so Steve figured it was better not to ask – had a panic room, which was useful. It was the same room, in fact, that Bucky had wanted to be his bedroom, but he seemed content enough with its revised use now. At first Steve had not known how to bring this up with his friend, how to tell him that they thought it was best if they subjected him to the worst sort of brain-meddling they could do, a violation to the nth degree. It hurt him, to admit to Bucky that he thought it was a good idea.

            It seemed to hurt Bucky less.

            “That’s probably smart,” he said, bluntly. “Did Natasha come up with it?”

            Steve watched his friend. “She did.”

            “I’m not surprised,” replied Bucky. “I think she likes seeing me in pain.”

            “Why would she like that?”

            Bucky didn’t answer at first. For a moment, he stared miserably out past Steve, beyond the small room. Then he jerked back to the present, and glanced up. “A few years back,” he said. “I think it was…Ukraine.” He tapped his side. “I put a bullet in her belly.”

            This, Steve knew already, but somehow he suspected Bucky wasn’t telling the whole truth. He and Nat knew each other, somehow – they knew something about each other, something Steve hadn’t yet figured out.

            Steve put one hand to his own abdomen and pointed out, “You shot me too, and I don’t mind.”

            Bucky sounded bitter. “You heal a lot quicker than most people.”

            There was a short silence.

            “Buck,” continued Steve, pushing forward despite really, really not wanting to. “If you don’t want to do this, we won’t. But…Sam and Nat have a point. We need you out in the field.”

            “You don’t need a one-armed war criminal-” began Bucky, but Steve shook his head, interrupting him.

            “No, I don’t,” he said. “I need my friend.”

            Bucky didn’t reply to this.

            “Besides,” added Steve, “if we do this, and it works, then you’d never have to worry about being controlled again. You’d be free.”

            “You have a funny idea of what ‘free’ means,” said Bucky.

            Steve held out his arms. “I’m Captain America,” he said. “Nobody knows freedom better than me.”

            This got the ghost of a smile onto Bucky’s face, for which Steve silently rejoiced. “It’s a good idea,” admitted Bucky. “But one slip-up, and things get real bad real fast.”

            “This is a house full of superheroes, Buck.”

            “That didn’t stop me last time.”

            “Last time, you had two arms,” Steve pointed out. “And none of us had psychic powers.”

            Bucky raised an eyebrow. “I thought you didn’t want Wanda in my head.”

            “Well, no, I don’t,” replied Steve. “But if you’ve somehow managed to take down the rest of us, and you’ve got Clint in a chokehold, and she gets upset, look – I’m not gonna stop her from doing her thing.”

            So it happened that Clint and Natasha set up an intercom system feeding directly into the panic room, and Steve insisted on dragging a cot into the little room. “This is going to be hard on you,” he told Bucky stubbornly. “I’m not having you pass out on the God damn floor. I’m not.”

            When the intercom was set up, Natasha appeared at the door. “Steve,” she said. “We’re ready.”

            Steve looked between her and Bucky. He seemed unsettled. “Right,” he said. “Give me a second.”

            Natasha nodded. She glanced past him, at Bucky. “ _Ni puha, ni pera_ ,” she said.

            Bucky gave her a wry smile. “ _K chertu_.”

            She returned the smile slyly, then left the room. “What’d she say?” asked Steve.

            “Good luck,” answered Bucky. “Steve, can I ask you something?”

            Very seriously, Steve nodded at his friend. “Anything,” he said.

            Bucky looked around the room, surveying the smooth, solid steel walls, the little cot, cold ceiling. “I want you to say it,” he said. “Not any of them. Listen. If somebody out there gets to control me, I’d want-”

            He broke off suddenly, looking mildly embarrassed, as if he’d surprised even himself with this request.

            “I’d want it to be you,” he finished quickly, just above a murmur.

            Steve understood.

            He laid a hand on Bucky’s arm. “Of course.”

            There was a slight buzzing sound. “Boys,” came Natasha’s voice, from the intercom. “If we’re done with the Brokeback moment…”

            Bucky glanced up at the intercom, then at Steve, frowning. “Brokeback?”

            Steve shrugged, just as mystified as his friend. “I got nothing.”

            “Really?” came Natasha’s voice again, sounding genuinely taken aback. “Well, I know what we’re renting for movie night this week. Hey, Rogers,” she added. “Let’s go.”

            Steve clapped Bucky on the shoulder, met his gaze, and nodded. “We’re starting slow,” he said. “Just the basics tonight.”

            Bucky nodded, and Steve turned and left the panic room, bolting the door shut behind him. He found the rest of them huddled around a screen which showed a live feed of Bucky, who was glancing around the room again. After a second, he sat down on the cot. Wanda watched the video anxiously; behind them all, Sam stood stonily, arms folded.

            Steve did a headcount and noticed someone missing. “Where’s Scott?” he asked.

            “He’s on the phone with his daughter,” answered Natasha. Nodding at the screen, she added, “He’s not really invested in this anyway, didn’t think he had to be here.”

            Steve shrugged. “Fair enough.”

            Nat got up from her seat, making room for Steve before the screen and microphone. Still uncomfortable, he sat down, grimacing at the screen. “Do we really need this?” he asked, looking around at her. “I feel like he’s a lab rat.”

            “He kind of is,” said Nat. “Besides, if things get out of hand we need to know what’s going on. I wouldn’t make you watch him if I didn’t think it was necessary, for our safety and for his own.”

            He looked back at the screen. She placed a sheet of paper in front of him, on which were written ten words, first in English and then in Russian, transliterated for pronunciation in her surprisingly messy scrawl. Looking down at the words, he read them silently one by one, each one painfully tightening the strings around his heart.

            “What do they mean?” asked Wanda, and Steve started; he hadn’t realized she was reading over his shoulder. “Are they random?”

            “No,” said Steve, at the same time that Natasha said, “Yes.”

            There was a pause; Steve didn’t look up from the paper, but Natasha conceded, turning to Wanda and adding, “Kind of.”

            “One-nine-seventeen,” said Steve, pointing to each word one by one on the page. “Nineteen-seventeen. That’s the year he was born.”

            There was a heavy silence.

            “Freight car,” he continued. He pointed at the word. “That’s – how he…”

            A lump formed in Steve’s throat, and he couldn’t say it.

            He pressed a button, and leaned towards the microphone.

            “Hey, Buck,” he said. “I’m going to try some things first. I’m gonna start in English. Okay?”

            “Okay,” answered Bucky, glancing around the room for a camera he assumed must be there. “Smart move. You’d butcher the Russian anyway.” He seemed to consider this comment for a second, then added, “It’s a tough language,” as if to forgive Steve for not being good at everything. It tugged at Steve’s heart. He wondered if Bucky could quit looking after him even if he tried.

            “Okay,” said Steve. “Okay.” He looked down at the words, then cleared his throat. “Okay,” he said again.

            On the video screen, Bucky laid down on the cot, his one arm tucked up above his head. “Go ahead,” he said, closing his eyes. “I’m ready.”

            Steve leaned forward, to the microphone, and he said: “ _Longing_.”

            It was less than a minute later that Bucky lay still on the cot. He opened his eyes. “Hey,” he said, and he sounded kind of impressed. “I actually thought that was going to work.”

            “Of course it didn’t,” snorted Clint, shaking his head. “Latent psychic conditioning is always done in the mother tongue. You want to make it as unlikely as possible that a non-ally would guess the words or say them unintentionally. No shit it doesn’t work in English – that’s the point.”

            “Not all of us are experts on brainwashing, Clint,” said Natasha.

            “Bull, Nat,” he said, shaking his head. “You could’ve told ‘em that.”

            “Why Russian, anyway?” asked Steve, looking up at Natasha and Clint with genuine confusion. “Back when this all happened to him, the enemy was German.”

            “If Nazi Germany had succeeded in building a super-soldier in 1945, we’d be saluting the Fuhrer every morning,” said Clint matter-of-factly. “He was probably shipped out and fixed up during the Cold War. Superspies were kind of the Soviets’ thing.”

            Steve looked at Nat, who shrugged. “He’s not wrong.”

            It went on for a little longer, but Steve refused to say the words in Russian, so they all pretty much knew it was going nowhere. Scott showed up halfway through and asked if they wanted burgers for dinner, and Clint left with him to make food. Wanda sat silently beside Steve, nibbling at her nails, spinning her rings around and around her fingers. Sam watched Bucky on the screen, who, after a while, got up and started pacing back and forth. When Steve was done, he got up and said, “That’s enough,” and finally Sam moved forward, putting a hand on Steve’s arm.

            “Hold on,” he said. “Could be a delayed reaction, or something. We should wait him out at least an hour or something. Make sure nothing’s going on in there.”

            When Steve looked at him, it was with disappointment mixed with disgust.

            “He’s fine,” said Nat, so Steve didn’t have to say anything he’d regret. “We all knew this was going to be a test drive anyway. There’s no point in locking him in there any longer than he has to be.”

            Steve shook off Sam’s touch, and headed back out, unlocking the door of the safe room and letting Bucky out. The bags under his eyes were slightly more prominent, and he looked, somehow, smaller than he had merely half an hour ago.

            “That was fun,” he said.

            Steve gave a half-smile. “I think we’ve had better Friday nights.”

            Bucky gave a tired grin. “Hey, do you remember that night in Harlem-”

            “That night in Harlem we agreed never to speak of ever again?” finished Steve, cutting Bucky off mildly. He returned the grin, and added, “You know what, no, I don’t remember that. And neither do you.”

            With a laugh, Bucky followed Steve out of the panic room. “No, no, I remember that one pretty clearly.”

            “Oh, great,” sighed Steve, squeezing his friend on the shoulder. “If there was one memory I wouldn’t mind you losing…”

            The warm, mouthwatering smell of burgers cooking wafted in from the kitchen, and Wanda and Nat joined the boys as they headed towards food. “To be fair,” added Bucky, a grin on his face, “hard to shake that image of you, Steve.”

            “What’s this?” asked Nat, cocking one elegant eyebrow, her eyes igniting in interest. “Oh, well – now you have to share with the class.”

            “No,” said Steve, before Bucky could speak. “No, no, no, let’s all just, move on and talk about something-” Bucky opened his mouth and took an exaggerated breath, and Steve reached out across him towards Wanda, pressing his arm into Bucky’s face, silencing him, “hey, Wanda, you didn’t cut your hair or something, did you? Something looks different-”

            She laughed, and Nat let out a chuckle as Wanda replied that she had in fact repainted her nails. “That’s nice,” said Bucky, when he finally pushed Steve’s arm away from his face. “You should do my nails too, Wanda.” He gestured to the stump of his left arm and added, “I’d do it for myself, but…”

            The laughter was different at this, a little more surprised, a tad insecure – but it made Steve happy. Happy and relieved. He had been afraid… well, he’d been afraid of everything for Bucky. Besides just testing the words, he’d been afraid that Bucky would never be Bucky again, that James Buchanan Barnes had been lost amidst war and terror and the Winter Soldier.

            But if he could laugh, Steve thought, then he was okay. If he could still joke, then he would be okay.

            Dinner was hamburgers and Bucky asking Scott about his daughter – “Hold on, don’t tell me, Carol? Carrie? Candace? Carla? Am I close?” – and, by all accounts, talking more than he had the entire time they’d been there. Scott exchanged confused looks with Clint and Sam, while Steve just smiled in relief.

            After dinner, Wanda sat on the couch and Bucky on the floor while she painted his nails. At first she was going to use the same color as her own nails, a deep, velvety crimson red, but he asked if she had anything else – and she did, of course, which was why there were two dozen bottles of nail polish of various sizes and colors strewn across the coffee table. Scott and Clint were in the same room, watching news on the television; back in the dining area, Steve and Nat discussed something lowly as Sam sat with them, looking unhappy.

            In the midst of conversation with Wanda, a little smile bloomed on his face as Bucky threw his head back and said, “Man, the things I could tell you about Captain America.”

            Clint let out a grunt of laughter. “Can you imagine a PBS Special with this guy?” he said, grinning at Bucky. “Cap Before Cap: The Steve Rogers Story. People go crazy for that kind of shit.”

            “I’d watch that,” said Scott.

            “What’s PBS?” asked Wanda.

            “Yeah,” said Bucky, nodding at Wanda, then looking expectantly towards Clint.

            “PBS is funded by the government,” said Sam suddenly, speaking up from the back of the room; Steve and Nat instantly stopped their conversation, interrupted. “Which you happen to be currently on the run from.”

            Bucky’s head swiveled almost in slow-motion, his gaze slipping across the room so fluidly, eyes glinting just so that, for a single moment, Wanda caught a glimpse of the Winter Soldier he used to be.

            Steve was the one who spoke. Staring at Sam, he said shortly, “We’re all on the run, Sam.”

            Sam shook his head, refusing to meet Steve’s gaze. “Sure,” he began. “Just sayin’. Not everyone’s hiding out here for the same reason. That’s all.”

            “Sam,” began Steve, but Bucky spoke over him

            “No, Steve,” he said. “It’s not like he’s wrong.”

            The room seemed suddenly humid with tension, weighing on everyone, prompting them to avert their eyes and close their mouths. Only Nat peered at Sam with a half-blank look of resignation.

            Bucky got to his feet. “It’s fine,” he said. “Hey,” he added, but the smile was bland and see-through this time. “Wanda. Thanks.”

            With a half-glance at the rest of them, he said, “G’night,” and a small chorus of _goodnights_ followed him out the room, down the hall back to his own bedroom.

            Steve fixed Sam with a very disappointed pout, and Sam rolled his eyes then left the room as well, heading down the hallway.

            Behind him, Steve followed. “Hey,” he said. “Sam. Hold on.” Sam didn’t stop; Steve outpaced him, and reached out to put a hand on Sam’s shoulder.

            Sam slammed Steve’s hand away at the wrist, then whirled around, glaring at Steve. “What?” he demanded. “What? You gonna tell me off because I ain’t down with sitting around painting your boy’s fingernails like he’s some kinda kid?”

            “Sam,” began Steve.

            “Will you _quit_ saying my name!” replied Sam, raising his voice. “If there’s something you want to say, go ahead and say it, but if it’s gonna be more bullshit about tryna see him as a _human being_ , a _real person_ , then – save it. I got a right to resent that guy, after everything he’s responsible for.”

            “You do know that’s why we’re here, right?” asked Steve, his voice low. “Because somebody else couldn’t move past what he did either?”

            Sam shook his head firmly. “That’s not why I’m here,” he said. “I’m here because there was a bullshit law and a bunch of bullshit superheroes who wanted to arrest me because of it. I’m here because I was on _your_ side Steve, and I’m here because you were the one who busted me out.”

            “Which is better than being stuck in Tony’s prison,” said Steve.

            “Maybe,” spat Sam, like it was poison in his mouth. “But at least when the government had me I was still in the system. At least my mom knew I hadn’t been taken out back and shot in the head.”

            Steve didn’t say anything. Lowering his voice, he began, “You know we’re trying to set up encrypted communications, Sam-”

            “Yeah, I know we’re trying,” said Sam. “But all _trying_ means is that we haven’t done it yet.”

            There was a crease on Steve’s brow.

            Surprising Sam, Steve forwent the confrontation Sam was expecting, holding his hands out palms-up instead. “What can I do?” asked Steve seriously. “You and him, Sam – you and this team are all I’ve got in the world. I don’t want this between the two of you. What can I do?”

            Sam regarded Steve for a moment, then shook his head. “Just let me not like a guy, Steve,” he said, turning around to leave. “Swear to God. That’s it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I rly wanted to respect Sam's dislike of Bucky - I completely see where it's coming from. But I suspect Bucky will start to grow on him eventually.
> 
> Thanks for all the kudos y'all! Glad you're enjoying. If you have any feedback abt the story, characters, posting schedule, or questions or would like to share Cute Little Headcanons pls leave a comment! <3


	3. Chapter 3

            They put Bucky back in the panic room a few days later. Before Steve said anything on the intercom, Nat coached him through some of the pronunciations. Only she and Wanda were there this time. “Go slow,” said Nat. “You only have to go a couple words in.”

            “What happens if you say them all?” asked Wanda.

            Steve turned to look at her. “What do you think happens?” he asked, as if it were obvious.

            But Wanda just shrugged innocently. “The…Winter Soldier may have been a killing machine,” she said, “but he was a _machine_. It’s not like he suddenly tries killing everything in sight when he reverts back to his…” she struggled for the word for a moment, then landed on, “…programming.”

            “Conditioning,” corrected Nat.

            Wanda nodded. “All that happens is he takes orders. That’s it, right?”

            “We don’t know that,” said Steve darkly.

            “You have a point,” said Nat to her, leaning protectively across Steve. “But you should remember that you’ve only ever been on one end of mind control, Wanda. If we can avoid it, I’d rather not subject James to that, and I don’t think Steve wants to either.”

            Steve glanced up at Nat. “James?”

            “Are we doing this?” called Bucky, his voice tinny through the intercom. He gave a weak smile at the camera. “Don’t tell me you forgot about me already.”

            Pressing the button which broadcasted his voice into the room, Steve said, “We’re here. Ready?”

            “Yessir.”

            Steve let go of the button, taking a deep breath. “Okay,” he murmured. “Here we go.”

            He got to _rassvet_ – daybreak. Then Bucky let out a searing scream, his remaining hand visibly shaking on the small screen. Steve got to his feet so abruptly that his chair knocked to the ground. “That’s it,” he said. “That’s enough.”

            “Steve,” said Nat, but he swept past her, down towards the entrance to the panic room. “Steve, hold on-”

            On the screen before them, the door of the panic room wrenched open, and Steve entered the room. “Wait!” shouted Bucky hoarsely, throwing his hand up to stop Steve. “Wait!”

            Helplessly, Steve stood by the doorway, watching Bucky doubled over on the cot, his one arm curled around his head, eyes squeezed tightly shut.

            Nat watched the screen before them. “Wanda,” she said quietly. “Would you go down there?”

            The younger woman looked up at Nat with wide eyes; Nat gave a little shake of her head, and said, “Just in case.”

            In the panic room, five minutes went by, then ten. “Buck,” said Steve.

            Bucky groaned something unintelligible, but Steve was pretty sure he caught a mumbling, “ _No_ ,” in there somewhere.

            “Buck, it’s okay,” said Steve, tentatively taking a step forward. Behind him, outside the door, Wanda peered in after him.

            Up in the control room, Clint appeared. “Everything okay?” he asked.

            Nat nodded silently, eyes focused on the screen.

            Steve moved forward, towards Bucky. The man groaned again, but did not move as Steve came closer to him, then slowly knelt down beside him. “Hey,” he began. “Bucky. Can you hear me?”

            Bucky didn’t respond.

            “Come on,” said Steve, his voice soft and low, as if speaking to a child. “It’s okay. That’s it. Nobody’s going to say anything else, that’s it. You’re done. It’s okay.”

            After a few long, deep breaths, Bucky looked up at Steve, and Steve caught the lucidity in his eyes. “Sorry,” he grunted.

            “Don’t be,” answered Steve, shaking his head. “We knew this was gonna take time.”

            There was a few more moments’ silence. Steve sat on the cot with Bucky, one hand on his back.

            “It’s okay,” said Bucky, finally. Steve looked at him. “If you trigger me,” Bucky added. “It’s okay.” He hesitated, then continued, “That’s why I said I wanted you doing it. I trust you.”

            Steve watched Bucky uncertainly for a moment. “Maybe,” he said. “We’ll get there, Buck.”

            Two nights later, there was a knock on Bucky’s bedroom door. He’d been scrolling through archived news articles, searching for faces he recognized and names he half-knew. This had become a hobby as of late: he knew it was not good for him, and he was probably better off never knowing the extent of what HYDRA made him do, but be couldn’t stop himself. It didn’t feel right to not know.

            Usually it was Steve who knocked on his bedroom door, but Steve usually announced himself with a, “Bucky?” Whoever it was said nothing, but Bucky sat up and called, “Come in,” anyway.

            It was Natasha. “Hey, Soldier,” she said, not in Russian.

            Bucky didn’t know what to say in reply, so he went with, “Hi,” which sounded stupid as soon as he said it. “You need something?” he asked, which sounded hostile. Talking with Natasha made him uncomfortable, because all the ease and the reality of being around Steve fell away with her, and he had to build himself back up to something that made sense in her world. He hated what he awkwardly transformed into around her, but somehow, he couldn’t get himself to hate her.

            She stepped into the room, without closing the door behind her. Good. Good call. Always leave an exit open.

            Then she held up something small, white, and rectangular. “Got something for you,” she said.

            He narrowed his eyes slightly. “What is it?”

            Taking something out of her pocket, she plugged a cord into the rectangle and then crossed the room, to where she was standing directly above him. She took what appeared to be an earpiece between two fingers, and held it out towards his head, silently asking for permission. Without taking his eyes off her, he nodded slightly, and tilted his head to one side. She tucked the piece into his ear, then hit something on the tiny player.

            Her voice whispered into his ear, loud and clear. “ _Zhelaniye_.”

            Instantly, he ripped the earbud away from him, heart pounding. “What the hell is that?” he demanded.

            “Relax, Barnes,” she replied, picking up the earbud and offering it to him again. “There’s no way this would trigger you. Trust me.”

            He didn’t, not really, but, cautiously, he replaced the earbud. “ _Zhelaniye_ ,” came her voice again. “ _Zhelaniye. Zhelaniye. Zhelaniye_.”

            She held up the screen of the player in front of his face. “Each of the trigger words,” she said. “An hour each. I recommend listening to it at night. Fall asleep with it on. It should start to build an unconscious resistance.”

            Bucky took the player from her hands, staring down at it. “An hour each?”

            “Yep. When you’re ready, I can cut it to half an hour, then twenty minutes, then ten. I figured long-term exposure might be more useful than four words every other Friday night.”

            He gave her a bitter-ish smile. “Steve’s trying his best.”

            “I know,” she replied. “It’s sweet. But he doesn’t understand this stuff.”

            “And you do?”

            “You know I do.”

            Bucky held up the player. “Ten hours of your voice to break through fifty years of conditioning is pretty damn optimistic.”

            “True,” answered Natasha. “And I know your conditioning was paired with pain. Torture runs deep, and it’s hard to shake.”

            Bucky didn’t answer this.

            She gave him a pointed look, which might have been amusement, but wasn’t quite a smile. “I’m about to give you a piece of advice and I want you to take it seriously,” she said. “The only conditioning agent in the human psyche stronger than pain is pleasure. So you need to recalibrate your brain to associate resistance with pleasure.”

            He watched her, a frown deepening on his brow.

            Natasha gave a very pointed glance in a downward direction, and Bucky’s eyebrows shot upwards.

            “What?” he asked faintly, sure he had misunderstood.

            “We don’t have any sophisticated tech capable of rewiring your brain out here,” she said bluntly. “You need to refigure your brain to desire resistance more than it feels compelled to comply.”

            “Hold on,” said Bucky, “can’t Wanda just stick her fingers in my head and stir things around up there? That’s gotta be quicker than – this.”

            “That’s gross, Barnes,” replied Natasha scathingly. “She’s nineteen.”

            “I don’t mean like-”

            “Look,” interrupted Natasha, cutting him off. “ _You_ are our most powerful weapon against what they did to you. Your mind is capable of overcoming conditioning all on your own. I know this. You’ve done it before.”

            “Sure,” answered Bucky uneasily. “But that was with a lot of help from Steve…”

            Natasha shrugged. “Think about him, then.”

            Bucky’s face felt uncharacteristically hot. “I _didn’t_ mean-”

            “I’m not telling this to you to be cute,” said Natasha, again not letting him finish his weak protest. “I’m telling you, as a professional, as someone who has been there – you know I have – that this is as good a bet as we’ve got right now.”

            There was a silence between them, as Bucky contemplated the media player in his hand.

            “It’s just an idea,” she said, her voice low. “Some free advice. Anything to speed this along so Steve doesn’t look so kicked-puppy around you all the time.”

            This, Bucky could agree with. Looking back up at her, he asked, with a hint of an edge in his voice, “Will you be wanting nightly progress reports, _tovarishch_?”

            A ghost of a smile tugged at the corners of her lips. “You should be so lucky.”

            She turned and slipped out of his room, leaving Bucky alone with a recording of her voice, and a vague sense of something tugging at his stomach he hadn’t felt in a long time, a feeling foreign and forbidden to him for years, attraction, as it was, rendered unnecessary when one is nothing more than a weapon in a human shape.

            If Steve noticed the next morning that Bucky had a hard time looking Natasha in the eye, he didn’t say anything.

            Less than a week later, Bucky approached Natasha as she sat at the kitchen table, frowning at intel she was receiving from who-knows-where. He held the little iPod in his hand. “I think we could speed it up,” he said to her, with more than a little humility. “I don’t think an hour’s worth is that useful.”

            “Have you been doing it every night?” she asked smartly, taking the iPod out of his hand, and plugging it into her tablet. Bucky got the feeling she wasn’t just talking about listening to her recording.

            “Yeah,” he replied cautiously. “More or less.”

            “More or less?”

            “Yeah,” he confirmed.

            “Good.”

            She very simply removed the audio tracks currently on the iPod and added ten different ones, which were listed as 30:00 instead of 1:00:00. Then she unplugged it and handed it back to him. “I’m going to take the others out on a mission. We’ll be gone for a day or two. I’d recommend you spend the whole time on this.”

            Bucky held the little audio player in his hand. “Just this?”

            Natasha barely spared a glance for him. “Don’t get cute with me, Barnes.”

            “You’re the one who suggested it.”

            “Suggested what?”

            Both Natasha and Bucky’s gazes snapped up to the entrance to the room, where Sam appeared. Warily, he headed to the fridge, taking out a milk carton. “I’m sorry,” he continued, when neither of them replied. “Did I interrupt something?”

            “No,” answered Natasha, giving him a hollow smile. “Just some friendly talk amongst comrades.”

            “Former comrades,” corrected Bucky.

            Sam poured himself a glass of milk, then took a long sip, staring at them. “Whatever,” he said. He left the kitchen.

            There was a moment’s silence. Natasha got back to whatever she was doing on her tablet.

            “He doesn’t like me,” said Bucky, sounding miserable.

            Natasha gave a pointed cock of her head. “To be fair, it would be hard to like you after what you did to him.”

            “You like me,” said Bucky.

            “I know you,” said Natasha smoothly. “He doesn’t. Give him time. He just needs to get past the Winter Soldier, and eventually he’ll be able to get to know the James Barnes beneath.”

            Bucky stared vacantly at the door out of the kitchen, then he blinked, and he looked back at Natasha. “Bucky,” he corrected. “My name is Bucky.”

            She glanced up at him, giving him a sly once-over. “Hmm,” she muttered, as if considering this hard. “I’m still going to call you James.”

            As she looked back down at the tablet, he watched her, his eyes fixed on the green of her own, the button of her nose. “Fine,” he said. “But only you.”

            Like she’d promised, all the renegade Avengers were gone the next day, leaving Bucky alone to listen to Natasha’s audio tracks on repeat, and do whatever the hell else he wanted. It was surprisingly lonely. It felt surprisingly bad, actually, to know that the rest of the team was out there doing something, and he was stuck inside, wasting away his time. He had once thought he’d had enough action for a lifetime. Apparently, this was not the case.

            When Steve and the others returned, Bucky may have been a little too pleased to see them. “I’ll make food,” he offered, as the team trudged into the house, most of them going off to their various showers. “What are you guys hungry for? We could probably get pizza, if one of you picked it up. I’m not great at cooking food.”

            Later that week, he returned to the panic room. This time Steve got six words in – but it was good, progress, really, because the screaming didn’t start until the fifth word, which was… one more than last time. Natasha stood behind Steve as he spoke, arms folded across her chest, her expression blank and neutral.

            “I _told_ you,” insisted Bucky, ten minutes later, looking exhausted and embattled, as if he’d physically gone six rounds with his own head. “It’s okay. There’s not going to be a better opportunity to experiment with-”

            “No,” said Steve stubbornly. “I’m not doing that to you. I’m not hurting you like that.”

            Frustrated that Steve didn’t seem to be understanding his frustration, Bucky continued, “ _Steve_ , it _has_ to happen sometime, or else how do we know if this is working?”

            “One word at a time, Buck. One word at a time.”

            Not a month later, Bucky had graduated to twenty-minute intervals, which meant that he fell asleep each night mouthing, “ _Gruzovoy vagon… gruzovoy vagon… gruzovoy vagon_ ,” over and over again.

            One night after listening to all of Natasha’s audio without feeling remotely sleepy, Bucky got up and ambled to the kitchen in search of hydration. Earbuds still tucked neatly into his ear, he rifled through the refrigerator with his one arm. He took a protein shake in his hand and stared at it for a moment; he had been told by Steve that these were healthy and replenishing, especially after a particularly heavy training session, but the first and only time Bucky had ever tried one, it had made him sick. Something about the dense nutrients packed in to an easy-to-swallow liquid form reminded him of tubes being forcibly shoved down his throat, nutrients delivered straight into his system with no regard for taste or substance.

            He replaced the protein shake and closed the fridge, opting instead for a glass of water and an apple. Natasha’s voice whispered in his ears as he sat down, digging into his apple intently. “ _Zhelaniye. Zhelaniye. Zhelaniye_.”

            Lost in the rhythm of the words and the splendorous, simple pleasure of a ripe apple – Natasha was right; nobody, not HYDRA, not the Soviet Union, not S.H.I.E.L.D. itself could take the sweet, small pleasures away from him – Bucky almost didn’t realize when someone else entered the room. But he was not the Winter Soldier for nothing, and the someone only made it two steps into the kitchen before Bucky tore the earbuds out of his ears, looking up in alarm.

            Sam, caught in sweatpants and a t-shirt, stopped short, holding his hands up. “Woah,” he said. “Settle down. Just came out for a drink of water.”

            Bucky hadn’t realized he’d gotten to his feet. He gestured, apple core still in hand, to his own glass of water. “Me too,” he said.

            “Nice,” said Sam, obviously sarcastic. “Looks like we have a lot in common.”

            Bucky didn’t say anything, only watched Sam take out a glass and fill it with water from a filter on the fridge.

            “Why don’t you use the tap?” asked Bucky.

            Sam glanced around. “Hm?”

            “Tap water,” repeated Bucky, pointing at the sink. “Why the special refrigerator water?”

            Sam looked genuinely taken aback at this question. “I…don’t know,” he answered, almost cautiously. “Tastes better, I guess?”

            Bucky gave a half-hearted chuckle. “You should’ve tasted it in the ‘30s.”

            There was an awkward silence. They both took a sip of water.

            “Steve making any progress with your psycho brainwashing stuff?” asked Sam.

            Bucky shrugged. “He’d say so. He’s taking it pretty slow, thinks it’s best for everyone.”

            “Best for you?”

            Bucky didn’t answer this, just shrugged again.

            After another drink of water, Sam shook his head. “Y’know,” he said. “It’s funny. I’ve never known that man to take anything slow in the whole time I’ve known him.”

            Again, Bucky gave a little chuckle. “Well, that’s not entirely true,” he quipped. “He usually went pretty slow with the ladies.”

            There was a silence.

            “That was a joke,” Bucky added. “The first fifteen years I knew Steve, I never saw him go on more than two dates with a girl. Not once.”

            “’Cause he was little?”

            “Yeah, partly,” admitted Bucky, with a noncommittal shrug. “And he could be a punk about it.”

            Bucky picked at the core of the apple, holding it between forefinger and thumb, nails painted, courtesy of Wanda, an iridescent purple. If he had looked up, he might’ve noticed the hint of a smile on Sam’s face. “A punk, huh?”

            “Yeah,” answered Bucky. “Always wanted to fight somebody. Never once won a fight in his whole life, not once. He’ll probably mention this one time when we were thirteen – he tied some kid’s shoelaces together and the kid tripped all over himself. Which was funny at first, until he cornered Steve the next day with his gang of bullies, and Steve had to limp home that day with a ding in his spine that wasn’t from the scoliosis.”

            Sam let out a little laugh, and Bucky looked up, surprised, then grinned.

            “Damn,” he said, looking back at the apple, then at Sam again. “I didn’t even know I still remembered that.”

            “Well,” said Sam reasonably. “He doesn’t lose so many fights anymore.”

            “Except against Stark, and before that, against me,” retorted Bucky. He had almost said _Howard’s son_ , because he as bad as it sounded he still couldn’t remember the guy’s name, but he figured _Stark_ would be clearer to Sam.

            “I dunno,” replied Sam, with a shrug. “The way Steve tells it, he won that fight against Tony.”

            _Tony_ , that was it. “If he’d won,” countered Bucky, “you think he’d be hiding in an underground compound, without the shield?”

            Sam considered this. “Touché.”

            In the silence that followed, Bucky kept working on his apple, which was now reduced to its stringy core and a set of seeds.

            “Y’know,” said Sam. “You could just…grab another apple.”

            Bucky looked up, slightly surprised by this sudden comment. “I’m not done with this one.”

            “Yeah, kid, you are,” said Sam. “This ain’t the ‘40s anymore, you don’t gotta ration.” When Bucky still looked resistant, Sam nodded pointedly at the trash can. “Go on,” he said. “Come on now. I know you can do it.”

            Reluctantly, with Sam’s encouragement, Bucky threw out what little remained of his apple core.

            “God, damn,” mused Sam, watching him. “Sometimes it’s like teaching a baby, isn’t it?”

            Bucky really had no reply to this, so he just sat there. He took another drink of water, then fiddled with the iPod – he realized he hadn’t paused it, and the audio was now well into the _rzhavyy_ track. Sam craned his neck slightly to glance at the old iPod, then asked, “Whatcha listening to?”

            Feeling slightly caught, Bucky looked up. “Oh,” he said. “Just…a thing. I don’t really…know what it’s…”

            “I could make you a playlist,” said Sam.

            Bucky blinked up at Sam.

            “You know, get you all caught up on modern music. Made one for Steve,” Sam continued, sounding slightly put out, “but he doesn’t listen to it. I guess he prefers the oldies. I don’t blame him. S’what he grew up with.”

            It occurred to Bucky to point out that he grew up with the ‘oldies’ too, but he didn’t say that. “Sure,” he answered, unsure if Sam was being serious or not. “That’d be great.”

            “Cool,” said Sam.

            “Cool,” echoed Bucky.

            There was an awkward pause, then Sam went to the sink, washed his glass, then replaced it in the cabinet. “Get some rest,” he said, to Bucky. “G’night.”

            “’Night.”

            Sam left, leaving Bucky alone in the kitchen, feeling pleasantly confused.


	4. Chapter 4

            All things considered, Steve thought things were going pretty good.

            The turning point, Steve thought, was one Tuesday afternoon when Natasha came back with an old flip-phone in hand, and tossed it at Sam. “There you go,” she said. “Triple-encrypted. Untraceable.”

            “What?” asked Sam, opening the phone, frowning up at Natasha.

            “Use that for one number and one number only,” she replied. “It’s already in there. Your mother has the other phone.”

            Sam was the last of them to get set up with one of these; Clint already had his own networks, and after triple-checking them with Natasha, he’d resumed contact with his family as normal. Scott too was both lower-profile than Sam, and had a history of cloaked communication with his ex and his daughter. Known for being closest to Steve and having the reputation of providing a safe house, Sam's family was the most closely surveilled, in case they revealed anything which would lead to Captain America’s hiding place. What this meant is that since he’d disappeared, he hadn’t had any contact with his mom or his sisters or any of his family.

            So, pretending he wasn’t shocked or deeply touched, Sam clutched the phone, looking up at Natasha. “For real?” he asked.

            She nodded at him. “For real.”

            “And I can use it anytime?”

            “Anytime,” echoed Natasha, nodding her head. “It’s safer than the burner Steve sent to Tony.” She shot a half-hearted glare Steve’s direction. “Way safer.”

            “In my defense,” said Steve, watching the exchange from his seat on the couch, “you could’ve vetoed that at any point before it happened.”

            “Please,” retorted Natasha, then she took on a dramatic affectation and added, “Dammit, Steve, I’m a spy, not a marriage counselor.” To Bucky, who was sitting at the counter eating an apple, she explained, “That was a reference.”

            “It was good,” he said, sincerely. “Funny.”

            Sam got to his feet, giving Natasha a slight nod. “Hey,” he said, hitting a button on the phone, then holding it up to his ear. “Thanks.”

            She nodded as he left the room, and as he headed down the hall they could hear the relief in his voice when someone picked up the other line.

            “Steve and I must be easy,” said Bucky, as Steve and the others went back to watching a drama on TV Wanda had recently become addicted to. Natasha glanced up at him questioningly as he finished his apple, right down to the core, and tossed it into the trash. “’Cause we don’t have anyone,” he explained. “No encrypted hook-ups necessary, or anything.”

            Certain Bucky had not meant _hook-ups_ in the modern meaning, but amused nonetheless, Natasha bit back a smile. “Well,” she sighed, “Steve has Tony, remember?”

            Bucky gave a conceding shrug. “Yeah, but that’s not a social thing. Only for emergencies.”

            “You obviously don’t know Tony Stark.”

            “I don’t, really,” he agreed. “Except for when he tried to kill me. That’s pretty much the extent of how much I know about him.”

            Natasha watched Bucky, something faraway in his eyes. “He wasn’t really going to kill you,” she said.

            “Yeah, he was,” answered Bucky, without looking up to meet her gaze. “I don’t really blame him.”

            “You could’ve killed him first,” said Natasha.

            “Yeah,” responded Bucky. Finally, he lifted his head to look her in the eye. “But I didn't.”

            There was a silence between them. Natasha still watched him curiously, as if he were a specimen that intrigued her, or an animal she had never seen before, and therefore did not understand. She leaned against the counter where he sat, and asked, “So there’s no one special out there you’d want to get in contact with? You didn’t break a few hearts while you were on the run from the law?”

            Bucky shook his head. “I knew they’d find me, eventually,” he said. “Wasn’t worth it to get anyone else involved.”

            When she watched him with that unyielding gaze, he had to admit he understood why they’d named her Black Widow. “How noble,” she said.

            “Just kind of…common sense.” He hesitated, then asked, “What about you? No one out there you’d want to check up on?”

            “Sure,” she replied simply. “But given my skill set, checking up on them doesn’t always mean they get to check up on me.”

            “Sounds kinda lonely,” said Bucky.

            She stared at him, then she narrowed her eyes. A slight smile pricked at her lips. In Russian, she asked, “Are you flirting with me, _Soldat_?”

            He grinned at her. “Hey,” he replied, in English. “You started it. Speaking of,” he added, pulling something out of his pocket. He dropped the iPod, earbuds attached, onto the counter, and said, “I think we can go down to ten minutes. I think I’m ready for that.”

            “Ten minutes,” she said, taking the iPod, then glancing back up at Bucky. “Where do we go from there?”

            “I don’t know,” said Bucky. He lowered his voice, and added, “I kind of feel like we’ll never know, if Steve gets his way.”

            With some unease, Natasha looked out to where the others sat. They could only see the back of Steve’s head from this angle, blond and neatly combed. “To be clear,” Natasha replied, her gaze slipping back to Bucky, “you are asking for this, right? You want somebody to say the words?”

            “We have to,” answered Bucky, with a small shrug. “Otherwise how do we know it’s working at all?”

            “I don’t disagree,” replied Natasha, her voice level. “But I’m not sure you’re really clear on just how much doing that to you is going to fuck Steve up.”

            Bucky looked at her. “How could it fuck him up more than it fucks me up?”

            “Are you forgetting the part where he literally defied international criminal law to protect you?”

            “I didn’t ask him to do that,” said Bucky.

            “Which is my point,” answered Natasha, with a slight roll of her eyes. “I don’t think I’m the only one here who gets the impression that sometimes he cares about you more than you care about yourself.”

            Bucky didn’t answer this, his lips pressed tightly together. “Yeah, well,” he muttered, after a long enough pause that Natasha had thought him finished. “Used to be the other way around.”

            “No point romanticizing the past, James,” she said matter-of-factly. “Besides, Steve makes it sound pretty terrible. All boiled potatoes and polio.”

            Bucky made a face. “Well, he’s not wrong.”

            “So is it true he had polio then? The Smithsonian couldn’t confirm, but it’s on his Wikipedia page.”

            “Yeah, we both did,” answered Bucky, glancing around at Steve. “There was one summer every kid in Brooklyn got sick. Not the paralyzing kind, not for most of us anyway, but then Steve got the scarlet fever, and, you know. Everything kind of spiraled from there.” He gave a quiet little laugh. “It’s a wonder he survived, if I’m honest. His mom always used to say he must’ve had someone upstairs lookin’ out for him.”

            Natasha’s eyes were fixed on Bucky, though he did not return her gaze. There was something in the way she looked at him: not tenderness exactly, but softness, a gentle blend of pride and admiration. It was a good thing, she thought, that these memories were beginning to surface, that it did not cause him effort or pain to recall them. Every time he came up with something on his own, she felt a stab of hope. Whatever they were doing, it was working.

            The next week, Natasha had an assignment for Clint, Scott, Wanda, and Sam, which Sam took with some suspicion, until a casual conversation with Steve revealed precisely what he suspected.

            “No,” said Sam, loudly and stubbornly, arms crossed before Steve and Natasha, who sat pleadingly with him in the kitchen. “Are you outta your goddamn mind? I’m not gonna leave it to the two of you to deal with the world’s biggest super-assassin on a potentially murderous rampage!”

            “It’s not like that,” said Natasha steadily. “Those trigger words mean _we’re_ in control, not him.”

            “You don’t know that!” Sam shot back. “You don’t know there’s not some kind of trigger-word failsafe. You don’t got that book, do you? No, you don’t, the government took it-”

            “Sam, please,” began Steve, but Sam shook his head, cutting him off.

            “You _don’t know_ ,” he insisted. “And after everything he did, which included taking down both of you, _twice_ – you’re just going to kick us out and hope you can take him if everything goes wrong?”

            “The chances of there being some kind of failsafe are practically nil, Sam,” Natasha told him. “It wouldn’t make any sense – Zemo wouldn’t have been able to-”

            “Zemo had the book,” said Sam, refusing to listen.

            “But Sam, it wouldn’t make _sense_ -”

            “But do you know, though?”

            There was a silence. Defeatedly, Natasha looked around at Steve, who returned her glance, then looked at Sam.

            “No,” he admitted. “We don’t know. Not for sure.”

            Natasha leaned in. “But at this point it’s _highly_ unlikely-”

            “Don’t give me that shit, Nat,” Sam shot at her, with a glare. “The guy’s capable of wasting the whole damn team when he gets into the zone, we know that.”

            Steve sat between Sam and Natasha. “But this time _we’ll_ be in control, Sam.”

            “This is the _Winter. Soldier._ we’re talking about,” said Sam, smacking his hand on the countertop for emphasis. “Control isn’t even part of the equation!”

            At this, Natasha opened her mouth to respond, her eyes widening with anger, but Steve beat her to the punch. “Alright, Sam, come on. You know that's not true.”

            “What I _know_ ,” said Sam, his voice tight and final, “is that I’m not going anywhere. I walked away from everything to get that asshole here, Steve. You can be damn sure I’m not about to bail now.”

            With that, he walked right out of the kitchen, leaving Steve and Natasha exchanging unhappy looks. Just outside the door, Sam almost ran into someone standing there, leaning against the wall.

            Sam hesitated for just a second, as Bucky’s clear eyes connected with his. There was a moment’s pause, and then Sam nodded at him, and he strode down the hallway.

            “I don’t mind if you’re there,” Bucky called at Sam’s back. “In fact I think it’s a good idea. Steve’s liable to get himself killed with those kiddie gloves he treats me with,” Bucky’s voice raised, as Sam kept walking, “believe me, I know!”

            A door slammed, and Sam disappeared. Bucky leaned back against the wall, his stomach unsettled.

            Steve appeared at the entrance to the kitchen, one arm against the doorframe. He looked at Bucky, his expression somewhere between a desperate plea and a harsh judgment.

            “I think he’s right,” said Bucky, barreling ahead anyway. “Reinforcements are a good idea.”

            “Last time he and I went toe-to-toe with the Winter Soldier,” Steve pointed out, “you almost killed him.”       

            Bucky grimaced. “Everyone keeps bringing that up.”

            “I’m not saying that to guilt you,” continued Steve, “or to excuse him. But if I were concerned that something might happen – which I’m not – then you know I’d do whatever was necessary to minimize casualties.”

            Bucky let out a cynical bark of laughter. “So you’re sending him away for his safety? Steve, I always knew you had a little bit of martyr in you, but when did you get so goddamn patronizing?”

            “It’s not patronizing,” argued Steve. “It’s called looking out for your friends.”

            “It’s called being hard-headed,” said Natasha, appearing from behind Steve. Her gaze sweeping from Bucky to Steve, she said, “Sam has a point. There’s really no reason we shouldn’t let them stay.”

            Steve stood there for a long moment, and Bucky could almost see the internal debate raging inside his mind.

            Finally, he said, “Fine,” and, despite – or maybe because of – Steve’s deeply reluctant tone, a little smile tugged its way onto Bucky’s lips, and he shared it with Natasha, who gave him a little smirk in return, allowing him only slightly more respect than a roll of her eyes.

            “Hey,” he said, as Steve swept past him, his expression hard, “I’m ready when you are. Just say the word, buddy.”

            He and Natasha watched Steve head down the hall. “You don’t have to be mean about it,” said Natasha, as Steve disappeared into his room.

            “You call that mean? He used to take worse than that on the playground as a nine-year-old.”

            “Good thing he had you there to look out for him, huh?”

            Natasha didn’t think her sarcasm landed, but she hadn’t really expected it to. “Ah, well,” Bucky laughed. “I kicked a few asses when they got a little rough with him, sure, but I used to deal it out with the best of them.” He grinned down the hall Steve had disappeared. “He could take it.”

            Before the weekend, Clint drilled the legs of the cot down into the floor of the panic room, and Scott tested the door for any weaknesses. On Saturday, Sam insisted on being the one to frisk Bucky for anything he could potentially use as a weapon, and then begrudgingly declared him as harmless as he was going to get. Bucky laughed, and Steve frowned at him from the door.

            “Harmless,” repeated Bucky, pointing at the mechanical stump attached to his left shoulder. “’ _Arm_ less. Get it?”

            “That’s not funny, Bucky,” said Steve, as Natasha grinned and Clint reached out to say, “Come on, it’s a little funny.”

            “Hey, Wanda,” called Bucky, before they shut the door, “you wanna work a little magic and see if you can get Steve’s sense of humor back, maybe?”

            “Alright,” said Natasha, dragging the door shut. “That’s enough. Good luck, _Soldat_.”

            He offered her a smile, and a little bow of his head. “Do your worst, _Vdova_.”

            The door clanged shut behind her, the sound of locks slipping into place ringing in the room afterward. Bucky, dreading what lay ahead though certain it was necessary, took a seat on the cot, leaning forward over his knees. “Everybody ready?” he called, with a defiant grin at where he imagined the cameras to be. “Any minute now! I’m ready!”

            Steve’s voice came on the intercom. “Stay calm, Buck,” he said. “We’re gonna go slow. Just try to resist one piece at a time. If it gets too much-”

            “Steve,” called Bucky, “quit it with the tender lover schtick and just fucking do it already, will you?”

            Bucky was sure he heard the faint sounds of laughter coming from the observation room.

            Steve touched the intercom, which filled the panic room with a harsh artificial buzzing, like that of a weapon charging. In the electric silence that followed, Steve spoke.

            The first word always lands like a salve, a conditioned burst of endorphins to mirror relief after pain. It is a word which appeals to the inner, human nature of the beast, a nature which, to be excised, must first be recognized for what it is. The first step in extraction, as any halfway decent spy could tell you, is knowing your target.

            The second word begets gratitude. _Look; this is what you would be. This is what you would become_. It invites a glimpse into a parallel present, a potential future in which a body and limb are not tended to with great care and painstaking detail. It is a reminder of the lowest form of debasement for a weapon such as himself: disuse. Disrepair. Obsolescence. A weapon owes its use to he who keeps it useful.

            The third represents a grounding point, before the personness is lost to the harsh void of inhumanity. A year of birth, to remind this most precious weapon that he too was human once, because a soldier who is not a man, with a man's mind, is of little more use than a handgun. The balance, as HYDRA well knows, is between order and chaos – freedom and subordination. It is not a zero-sum game. HYDRA knows that has never been true. It is a terrible balancing act, between _man_ and _weapon_. Too far in either direction, and a soldier loses all his worth.

            Fourth is a handhold of this freedom exactly, just enough for a man to cling to.

            Fifth is a reminder of what lays on the other side, should a man overreach towards chaos.

            Sixth comes as a pledge of loyalty. Nine heads of HYDRA. Cut off one and two more will take its place. When they chose this word, they looked at their new soldier with tears of pride in their eyes. Nine heads of HYDRA, and the Winter Soldier was to be their fist.

            After six always comes the greatest burst of pain, the inhuman howling of a man-made-creature; so, after much experimentation, seven was designed to soothe.

            Eight is the carrot dangled in perpetuity before the donkey. The Winter Soldier performs his duty so that he may return and be permitted, once more, to sleep. Every successful mission earns him a sweet release.

            The ninth word is a veneration. There is only you, _Soldat_. You are a gift to humanity. You alone are capable of singlehandedly shifting the tides of the years, shaping the present to give gentle birth to the future. It is you, and you alone, against agents and forces of chaos.

            Where nine words have stung, the tenth strikes like flint against stone, and-

            “I can’t do it,” said Steve, tearing himself away from the microphone, his hands shaking. On the screen before them, Bucky was on the floor of the panic room, shouting hoarsely in a language Steve couldn’t understand, banging the concrete ground with his flesh-and-blood hand with such force that red blood appeared along the imprints of his knuckles. “I can’t do this to him, Nat,” repeated Steve, shaking his head, pushing himself away from the screen and microphone. “I won’t.”

            “He’s doing fine,” protest Natasha. “I know it sounds bad, but that’s just because you can’t understand him – Steve,” Steve shook his head, unable or unwilling to listen, but Natasha grabbed him by the shoulders, demanding his attention. “Steve, listen to me, one-two-five-five-seven-oh-three-eight, that’s what he keeps saying, you recognize that number. Right?”

            It was Sam who spoke, from behind them both. “That’s a service number,” he said.

            “ _Right_. That’s his service number, you _know_ what he’s doing, he’s identifying himself to a hostile foreign-”

            Steve batted her away, suddenly on his feet. “ _Listen_ to him, Natasha!” he shouted, over shrieking from the panic room below. “He’s in pain!”

            “He can _take_ it!”

            “ _Nat_ -” Steve shook his head violently, then pushed her aside and stoically swept out of the room, heading down to the entrance to the panic room. Natasha shouted after him in frustration, then she seized the microphone, slamming down on the broadcasting button with one hand.

            “ _Zhelaniye_ ,” she said, directly, with perfect pronunciation. “ _Rzhavyy_. _Semnadtsat’. Rassvet. Pech’._ ”

            Sam reached out, unsure. “Natasha…”

            She shook him off. “ _Devyat’. Dobroserdechnyy. Vozvrashcheniye na rodinu_.”

            The handle to the door of the panic room began to swing, and Sam stepped back. “Wanda, I want you down there now,” he said. “Clint, Scott-”

            “Suit up,” said Clint, cutting Sam off. He grabbed Scott and nodded. “Got it.”

            “ _Odin_ ,” said Natasha, her voice hard. “ _Gruzovoy vagon_.”

            The screaming stopped at the same moment the door swung open, wide and heavy, creaking in protest.

            Nothing happened. Natasha abandoned the screen and microphone, running down to the entrance of the panic room. Wanda hovered at the threshold uncertainly; Natasha motioned for her to step back, then cautiously entered the room herself.

            Steve was only a few steps in, staring numbly at the sight before his eyes.

            Bucky was on his feet, hair hanging limply about his face. All traces of familiarity – of recognition, of warmth, of personhood – were gone. The man who stood before him now was not Bucky Barnes. Not the Bucky Steve had ever known.

            Natasha stepped forward, astride and then ahead of Steve.

            “ _Soldat_ ,” she said.

            The Winter Soldier lifted his head.

            “ _Ya gotov otvechat_.”

            Steve, in visceral anguish, had to turn away. “God dammit, Nat,” he said, then he turned back to look at her, his jaw clenched. “ _Dammit_ , Natasha.”

            “This is what he wanted,” she told Steve, whipping around, holding her hands out to her sides. “We knew this was going to happen, okay? This was the intention.”

            “I thought the intention was for him to resist!”

            “That’s the end-goal! This is a long-term project! You don’t just shake off fifty years of conditioning in a month, _you_ were the one who said that, remember?”

            “He’s _my_ friend,” said Steve defensively. “When I shut it down, you had no right to pick it right back up again-”

            “Don’t,” said Natasha, her voice hard. “Don’t pull that crap with me, Rogers. Barnes is never getting better until you deal with the fact that the Winter Soldier is still in there-”

            “ _Ya gotov otvechat_ ,” repeated Bucky, his voice deep and gravelly and automatic.

            “Yeah okay,” said Natasha, holding up her hand. “I hear you, Soldier, just – sit down for a minute, alright?”

            Dutifully, Bucky took a seat on the cot, his back board-straight.

            Steve watched him, a muscle in his jaw jumping. Turning back to Natasha, he spoke. “He wanted _me_ to do it.”

            “Yeah, and you didn’t,” Natasha shot back. “So I did.”

            “He asked _me_ -”

            “And you _wouldn’t do it_ ,” she insisted. “What part of this aren’t you understanding?”

            “God _damn_ it Nat,” said Steve, raising his voice, turning around angrily, striding away, as if he could barely stand to look at her. “How am I supposed to trust you now?” he demanded. Holding one arm out in Bucky’s direction, he continued, “How is _he_ supposed to trust you? This isn’t some goddamn training exercise, you don’t get to _take over_ like that-”

            “Alright!” shouted Natasha, over Steve. “Okay, great!” She held up her hands as if begging a higher power, and let out a bitter, humorless laugh. “Okay, I see now where this communication is breaking down, Steve, because actually this _is_ a training exercise-”

            No matter whether or not Steve saw sense in this, and Natasha should have anticipated this, he could not see a damn thing beyond the look on her face. Furious, he demanded, “What the hell is so _funny_ -?” and strode forward to grab hold of her wrist, a hold which she immediately broke, twisting his elbow sharply as he did so, hard enough that he let out a little breath of pain.

            Behind her, the Winter Soldier got to his feet.

            Steve froze. Natasha looked up at him, then followed his gaze.

            She let go of Steve, taking a few steps back towards the one-armed man.

            “Careful,” she said, to Steve. “I have the world’s most dangerous assassin as my new bodyguard.”

            A scowl on his face, Steve protested against this. “You were the one hurting _me_.”

            “But you were threatening me,” she pointed out, standing less than a pace away from the Winter Soldier, on his feet. “He was ready to leap into action to protect my honor.”

            “Okay,” said Steve. “That’s enough. Snap him out of it.”

            Natasha watched Steve for a moment, then she turned around, so that she was nearly face-to-face with Bucky.

            “ _Soldat_ ,” she said. “…Wake up.”

            Nothing happened.

            “Wake up,” she repeated. “Snap out of it.”

            “Conscious and ready to comply,” he said.

            Natasha shot an uncertain glance at Steve. “How’d you get him out of it last time?”

            Steve grimaced. “Cognitive recalibration.”

            “You hit him really hard over the head?”

            “Well,” replied Steve, “an entire falling helicopter hit him really hard over the head.”

            Dissatisfied, Natasha looked back at Bucky’s blank face. “Anybody got a lead pipe?”

            “Hey, no,” said Steve, moving forward to join Natasha. “Look, I’d prefer it if we avoided that. I’m not looking to give him any permanent brain damage.”

            In disbelief, Natasha looked up at Steve. “Permanent brain damage,” she echoed. “Oh, no, wouldn’t want to risk that.”

            With a roll of his eyes, Steve added, “Any _further_ brain damage. I want to keep him as intact as possible.”

            “You mean you don’t want to hurt him any more.”

            “Yes, Natasha, I don’t want to hurt him any more,” he admitted testily. “Can you really blame me?”

            Natasha regarded him for a second, then shook her head. “No. You have a point.”

            There was a short silence. They both watched him, the blankness on his face, the brutal vacancy behind his eyes.

            “Steve,” said Natasha. “What happened on the helicarrier?”

            Steve didn’t say anything.

            “In D.C.,” she specified. “All we pieced together was that you got the living shit beaten out of you, and then he pulled you out of the water. His mission was to kill you…and he saved your life instead.”

            She glanced up at Steve. “What did you say to him?”          

            Steve still did not answer right away. Then he gave a small, short shake of his head. “I don’t know,” he said, truthfully. “I don’t know what it was that did it. I don’t think it was anything I said to him.”

            “Then what was it?”

            Steve had thought much of that day on the helicarrier. He had told no one of how he deliberately dropped the shield; how he refused to fight back, even as he felt blood flowing out of him, pooling beneath him, hot and wet, like the knuckles of Bucky’s metal fist as it collided again and again with the bones of his face. That steel had been unnaturally hot, as if thrust into a fire, burning Steve’s skin with each blow, leaving scars which lingered even as the wounds began to heal.

            He had been near death, so he thought he might have been misremembering – but he swore he recalled that look in Bucky’s eyes. It was anger, at first, and then fear, and then a dreadful, dawning realization. Steve had slipped into black unconsciousness then, at peace with whatever the water made of him, because he had seen it, he knew. He had seen that spark of recognition, deep in the Winter Soldier’s gaze.

            “Memories,” said Steve, finally. “It was his own memories. Nothing I could’ve said to him. He had to remember it on his own.”

            Slightly disappointed, Natasha looked back at Bucky’s face. “Memories,” she echoed. “Great. Just what we’re short on.”

            There was a silence, and then Wanda stepped tentatively into the panic room. “Maybe I could-”

            “No,” said Steve and Natasha simultaneously, and then Natasha added, “Thanks, Wanda, but he has to do this himself.”

            Clint too leaned into the room, just past Wanda. “I got an idea,” he said.

            Normally, Clint’s ideas were jury-rigged and kind of reckless, but Steve was more or less out of options, so he looked up. “And what’s that?” Natasha asked.

            Clint shrugged. “Sense memory’s supposed to be able to overpower conscious memory, right? Put on some old music, Steve, you can cook some of your shitty food – let his body do the work for us.”

            There was a pause, then Steve turned to look at Natasha. She shrugged. “It’s not a bad idea.”

            Taking a deep breath, Steve turned back to Clint and said, “Alright, fine.”

            It felt stupid, and the more they tried, the stupider Steve felt. An hour in, the scent of boiled cabbage stinking up the compound, a 1930s Spotify mix playing loudly, Steve gave up. “It’s not working,” he said, his hands flat on the countertop. It hurt him, physically, every time he turned around to see Bucky sitting there quietly, his eyes empty and hollow, like some kind of puppet. “Natasha, this is pointless.”

            “So it takes a little time,” she replied, picking at an opened bag of Cracker Jacks which had been their first attempt.  “Calm down. We’ll get through this.”

            “What if we don't, Nat? What if he’s stuck like this forever?”

            “Oh, my God, Steve. If that’s how this worked, we wouldn’t be sitting here with him right now.”

            “He’s not _him_ right now,” said Steve. “He’s…”

            He trailed off, helplessly. Natasha glanced at Steve, then down at the tablet before her. She unplugged something from it, and got to her feet. “What’s the important part of a so-called cognitive recalibration, Steve?”

            Steve stared at her, then shook his head. “I don’t know. What is it?”

            “Unconsciousness,” replied Natasha simply. “It’s essentially a hard reboot on the brain. But,” she continued, “a soft reboot should work too. _Soldat_.”

            Bucky got to his feet, flexing his one hand.

            “Come with me,” she said, and he followed her out of the kitchen, and down the hall. She opened the door to what had previously been his bedroom. “Inside,” she said, and Bucky complied, slipping into the room. “It’s time to go to sleep,” she said to him, in Russian.

            For a fraction of a second, the Winter Soldier did not move; Natasha could’ve sworn she saw him wince, but before she was sure his expression was clean and blank once more. She wondered what that particular expression used to mean, during his captivity. At her gesture, he laid down on the bed.

            “Close your eyes,” she said.

            He did so.

            “Sleep,” she said. She repeated it, once, in Russian.

            After a few moments, his breathing was slow and regular, but his face did not slip into soft unconsciousness. His body remained taut and rigid, his one hand clenched into a fist. Something ached deep in Natasha’s chest, and Steve’s words came ringing back to her. Maybe he was right. Maybe she shouldn’t have done this to James.

            Slowly, Natasha lowered herself down to sit on the edge of Bucky’s bed. She took out the little iPod he had relied on so heavily; while Steve was agonizing over how to break his friend’s conditioning as quickly as possible, Natasha had ripped a series of videos from the internet. There was original audio of Captain America in World War II, some of it scratchy and warped enough as to be unintelligible, but it was Steve’s voice all the same – Steve’s voice at a time before Bucky was the Winter Soldier. Before any of this.

            She had added a few clips cut out of historical documentaries, including HBO’s _Howling Commandos_ , which, in her opinion, took a few too many liberties in its interpretation of letters Bucky had written to Steve before their reunion in 1943, and, finally, she had added a personal recording, something she hadn’t listened to in over a year. It was a Lullaby; and while yes, technically it was part of the program she’d developed with Fury to keep Dr. Banner in check so as to never repeat that disaster on the Avengers Helicarrier – Bucky didn’t know that. And hey, it was worth a shot.

            Natasha took the earbuds, and tucked them into both of Bucky’s ears. She placed the iPod gently on his chest, and played the first track. He gave no indication that he heard anything, but she hadn’t expected any: the Winter Soldier was too well-trained for that.

            She let out a deep breath, looking down at him.

            Then she leaned over and, gently, she pressed her lips against his forehead. “ _Spokoynoy nochi_ ,” she whispered, then she got to her feet, and she left him alone in the dark.


	5. Chapter 5

           The next morning, Steve knocked on Natasha’s bedroom door for the first time, and then the both of them sat on her bed while he apologized. “I turn into some punk kid about him, every time,” he murmured, not looking her in the eye. “You were right. I blew up at you because I was afraid.”

           She watched him for a moment, her heart blooming with a particular kind of warmth Steve brought out with her. She took his hand. “Well,” she said, quietly, “even Captain America is allowed to get scared, sometimes.”

           With one firm squeeze of his hand, she leapt to her feet, then headed to her bathroom. “You check on Barnes?” she called back at him.

           “Yeah,” he replied. “Sound asleep.”

           “Still breathing, though?”

           “Yeah. I checked.”

           She popped her head out of the bathroom, smiling at him. “Then so far, so good. And there’s reason to be optimistic. Right?”

           As she disappeared back into the bathroom, Steve leaned slightly back on her bed. “You seem in an awful good mood for someone who brainwashed a guy yesterday.”

           “Are you kidding me?” came her voice, floating out of the bathroom along with the sound of the shower squeaking on. “Captain America just apologized to my face – my day is _made_.”

           In the kitchen, Scott and Clint were on dish duty. “This is gross,” said Scott, holding up a half-cleaned pot from Steve’s cooking the previous night. “Are you for real? Is this really what you all ate? How are you – how did you people even _survive?_ ”

           After a while, it was just Steve, Natasha, and Sam sitting around the table. “You talk to your mom lately?” asked Steve, making small talk.

           “Oh, yeah,” replied Sam, protein shake in hand. “My niece, Sara’s daughter, she made it on the high school dance team.”

           “High school?” echoed Steve. “She’s that old already?”

           “Yeah, man. These kids grow like weeds, I’m telling you.”

           “Tell your mom to pass on congrats for me.”

           “For sure. I’ll try and get some videos of their competitions, Sara’s real proud.”

           The sound of footsteps in the hallway made them all glance up, and, as they watched, Bucky entered the kitchen. He squinted against the light, his hair a mess at the back of his head, but it was clearly, indisputably, Bucky – not the Winter Soldier.

           “Well, look who it is,” said Sam, the first to break the silence. “Sleep well?”

           Bucky rubbed at his head, glancing in between Steve and Natasha. “What happened?” he muttered.

           Steve got to his feet, gesturing for Bucky to take the seat beside his. “You hungry?” he asked.

           “Not really,” murmured Bucky, reluctantly taking a seat. “What happened?” he repeated.

           “Nothing,” answered Natasha, leaning her chin on the heel of her palm. “We had a lovely night of vintage music and a home-cooked meal, and then we had a good night’s sleep.”

           Bucky watched her warily, as Steve fixed a bowl of oatmeal – Bucky’s usual breakfast. “ _We_?” mouthed Bucky, frowning, but Natasha only grinned at him in reply.

           “You asked for it, so we did it,” said Steve, stirring the oatmeal. “We used the trigger words, and it worked, but…” he turned around and set the bowl in front of Bucky, then laid his hands flat on the countertop, peering down at his friend. “What we should’ve gone over before we even started,” he said lowly, “was how to get you out of it.”

           “Oh,” said Bucky, taking the spoon Steve offered him. “Just hit me really hard on the head.”

           Sam held out his hand in a gesture that said, _See?_ , and Steve let out a little sigh. “James, come on,” said Natasha reasonably. “If it were that easy, everyone would’ve done it.”

           “It hasn’t always been that easy,” he said, shaking his head, then he added, “Steve, can you get me some sugar?” and then turned back to Natasha and explained, “The degree of control degrades the longer I’m out of cryo. Before D.C., I never had a mission longer than a few weeks, and now it’s been – a couple years. Thanks,” he said, as Steve got him the bag of brown sugar, which he generously spooned across his oatmeal. “Anyway,” he continued, mixing his breakfast around in the bowl, “the longer I’m out here, the more time I have to actually be in my own head, the weaker the control.”

           “You could’ve brought this up earlier,” said Steve.

           Bucky glanced at him. “I kind of assumed you’d figured that out by now. Didn’t Berlin seem a little too easy?”

           “That was an entire helicopter crash,” said Steve, taking a seat beside his friend.

           “And in D.C. it was three whole helicarriers,” Bucky pointed out, “and even that didn’t get the job completely done.”

           “What’d you do in D.C.?”

           The three of them, Steve, Natasha, and Bucky, all looked around. Sam was halfway finished with his second slice of toast, and had been listening silently to their conversation. “What?” asked Bucky.

           “I mean after we trashed the helicarriers,” Sam added. Nodding at Steve, he continued, “After you dragged our boy here out of the river. Where’d you go?”

           Bucky didn’t answer for a second. Then he glanced away, and he tucked a lock of his hair behind his ear. “There’s a safehouse outside Arlington,” he said. “I stayed there.”

           “And?”

           “Sam,” began Steve, but Bucky lifted his hand to quell his friend’s protest.

           “And I waited,” answered Bucky, and something about his voice felt terribly, agonizingly honest. “I waited twenty-one days for orders,” he said, “but orders didn’t come.”

           “So you left?”

           Bucky shrugged. “Three weeks is an upper limit. Wasn’t allowed to stay in one place that long unless under orders.”

           “Whose orders?”

           “My handler,” answered Bucky. “It changed every decade or so, but it was Pierce, then.”

           “He’s dead,” said Natasha bluntly. “Nick Fury killed him.”

           “I know,” said Bucky. He gave a weak, dark smile. “Kinda wished it’d been me, but as long as he’s dead I’m happy.”

           Sam nodded at Bucky. “Pierce the one who told you to get me?”

           “In a manner of speaking,” answered Bucky, taking a bite of his oatmeal. “I don’t know he mentioned you by name, though.”

           Dramatically, Sam clapped a hand to his chest. “Ah, you’re breakin’ my heart, kid.”

           Steve put his hand on Bucky’s back. “You feeling all right?”

           Swallowing another spoonful of oatmeal, Bucky nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Actually, I feel a whole lot better than I usually do afterwards.”

           “I was gentle,” said Natasha, and Bucky gave her another confused look.

           “We did our best to avoid punching you in the head,” explained Steve, leaning onto the countertop. “Tried to get you to wake up by triggering other memories.

           Bucky frowned into his oatmeal. Then, abruptly, he looked up, hitting Steve on the shoulder with his hand, spoon still tucked between his fingers. “Hey,” he said. “Didn’t you say you never got those letters I sent home?”

           Instantly Steve’s expression dissolved into confusion. “What?” he asked. “You mean after you shipped out?”

           “Yeah, yeah, before I knew you’d gone and got all Captain America’d,” continued Bucky doggedly. Natasha arched one eyebrow, exchanging a gently judging look with Sam. If she didn’t know better, she might’ve thought a slight blush had risen into Bucky’s face. “Those letters I sent, I thought you said you never got ‘em.”

           “I never got any letters from you,” said Steve. When they talked like this, just the two of them, Sam had noticed that their Brooklyn accents tended to come out a little, like actors on a TV show. “They had me touring the country, remember?”

           The back of Bucky’s hand still rested on Steve’s shoulder, but a frown was etched on to his face. “Huh,” he said. “I don’t know why – for some reason I thought…” He shook his head. “I must’ve remembered ‘em last night, that’s all.”

           Natasha felt a twinge of regret at recklessly including that segment from the HBO documentary, which was subsequently overshadowed with a sense of triumph as she reasoned that memory may well have been what brought Bucky back to his senses.

           “Hey,” said Sam, leaning in, the crust of his toast abandoned on his plate. “You can remember when you’re under, right? It ain’t just a blank slate?”

           With a half-grimace, Bucky set his spoon down in his half-eaten oatmeal, and ran his hand through his hair. “Most of the details, yeah,” he admitted. “Not enough to put together the big picture.”

           “Makes sense,” remarked Natasha, and Steve shot her a look to which she replied with a shrug. “They’d want him to know the how, but not the why. Right?”

           Steve looked back at Bucky intently. “What do you remember of last night?”

           Bucky frowned, rubbing his forehead. “I remember…your voice,” he said. Natasha glanced at Steve. “It was full of static, like through an old radio.” Once again, Natasha counted this as an uncertain win, but she didn’t look up at Steve to indicate this. “And…” he trailed off, peering off into the distance, that frown still etched into his brow.

           “You were angry,” he said. “You were yelling at someone.”

           Sam, who had witnessed all the angry yelling and knew Bucky wasn’t wrong, leaned back, crumbling the crust of his toast between his forefinger and thumb. It looked like Bucky wanted to say more, but he couldn’t come up with it; his expression twisted slightly, with confusion and what might’ve been pain.

           So Natasha stepped in for him. “See?” she said pointedly, with a smirk in Steve’s direction. “He registered you as a threat. That’s why he got up when you put your hands on me.”

           “What?” asked Bucky, snapped back to the present.

           “Hold on,” replied Steve, holding up his hand in protest. “No, he stood up as soon as you almost broke my arm.”

           “Yeah, but I was the one who said the words.”

           “But he said it himself, the conditioning, the control isn’t perfect. And if I’m the one who snapped him out of it, the last three times-”

           “Hey, ladies,” barked Sam. “You’re both pretty!” Gesturing at Bucky, he added, “Now why don’t you pay attention the guy you’re fighting over and just ask the man, he’s right here.” Steve and Natasha both fell silent, following Sam’s gaze. “Barnes?” asked Sam.

           Bucky didn’t say anything for a second, glancing innocently between Steve and Natasha. A small grin trickled onto his face. “Sam’s right,” he said. “You’re both very pretty.”

           “Bucky,” said Steve, seriously.

           With a half-laugh, Bucky said, “I don’t even know what you guys are talking about. Natasha,” he said her name strange, Steve noticed, differently than Steve said it; with the slightest Russian language inflection, maybe? “Automatic defensive reflexes aren’t a part of my conditioning. That’s too much of a liability – if it isn’t part of a set of orders, it doesn’t happen. And Steve,” he added, turning to the other man, “I don’t… if I _was_ breaking through the conditioning, it was unconscious. I don’t remember that.”

           “Okay,” said Natasha patiently, “what do you remember?”

           Bucky looked down at his oatmeal, brow furrowed in thought. “I remember,” he began, “…counting.”

           Natasha’s face lit up. “Good,” she said. “That’s good. That’s what you were doing right before the words kicked in – you were counting off your service number. That’s good, James.”

           “No,” said Bucky, shaking his head. “For some reason, I remember…” he frowned up at Steve, confusion plain in his face, “…counting to sixty.”

           There was a beat’s bewildered pause, and then, suddenly, a huge smile bloomed on Sam’s face. “Ohh,” he said, laughing. Cupping his hands around his mouth, he said, “ _Oh-ohhh_ , shit!”

           Steve asked, “What, Sam?”

           “Ohh, shit,” he laughed, patting his chest, wiping tears away from his eyes. “Come on,” he said, grinning at Natasha. “Come on, super-spy, don’t tell me you don’t got this one nailed down.”

           “Obviously I don’t,” answered Natasha icily. “Would you like to share with the rest of the class?”

           “Alright,” said Sam, still grinning at the three of them. “Alright, alright. Okay. I was there, right?” he said, addressing Bucky. “I heard everything they said, and,” he turned to Natasha, “you said, and I quote – _sit down for a minute, soldier_.” He grinned at her. “Come on. A minute.” This dawned on Steve and Natasha slowly, turning their frowns into expressions of shock and dismay. “Sixty seconds, baby,” called Sam, laughing. “Didn’t have jack shit to do with either of you. Oh, man, this is _good_.”

           “It does make sense,” said Bucky apologetically. “One of the failures of conditioning is a tendency to take orders hyper-literally.”

           “Well,” said Steve, badly faking nonchalance. “I’m not gonna lie, that’s a blow to my ego.”

           “Yeah, well,” added Bucky, Sam’s infectious grin spreading onto his face as well. He clapped his hand on Steve’s shoulder and said, “Your ego could use a good blow, man.”

           Natasha didn’t think Sam or Steve caught the sly little snicker Bucky gave at this, but she shot him a knowing grin, just so he knew someone was listening.

           It was a good day; Steve kept looking around at Bucky as if to remind himself that the other man was really there, and he was okay, then he would shoot Bucky a smile and return to whatever it was he was doing. It was nice. All Bucky had to do was sit around and smile back at him. Natasha’s constant side-eye reminded Bucky that it was a redundant, childish gesture, but Bucky thought it was kind of nice. When they were kids in school, Steve used to sit in the front of the classroom, because he couldn’t see the board all that well from the back. He used to turn around just like that, squinting his eyes, and shoot Bucky a dopey smile, as if delighted to realize he was still sitting there.

           In the war – and Bucky thinks about this sometimes, even though most of the war is a blank space, it’s an empty box he doesn’t open because the only thing darker than killing men under orders is doing it of your own free will – Steve used to do it then, too. Bucky would ride in the back of the truck, rifle in hand, or he’d find the high ground, and he’d keep his scope focused in a radius around Steve. It was a good high, better than nicotine, and Bucky got addicted to it: after every shot he jerked back to Steve, to catch his face and sometimes the spray of blood and brain matter that misted towards him, depending on how close Bucky’s target had been. But it was worth it. Just to see that skyward look. It wasn’t a smile, not in Nazi-occupied territory in 1944. But it was something.

           So Bucky nodded back at Steve, a silent reassurance that he was still there, and that what they’d done to him the night before had not torn him apart. Steve was forgetting, Bucky thought, that he had endured much worse than that. One night wasn’t much compared to seventy-five years, and he ended up on the other side of that not much worse for wear.

           Well. It was all a matter of perspective, anyway. He was alive. Sometimes, and Bucky had not learned this in war but rather in 1937, when Steve caught the flu for the second time and didn’t tell him for two days, and Bucky spent every second he wasn’t by Steve’s side at church, swearing to God he’d never sin again if He saved Steve – sometimes, Bucky had learned, when Steve woke up a week later, lucid for the first time since he’d gotten ill, sometimes, just being alive was the best you could dare to hope for.

           When it got late, Bucky announced he was heading to sleep early, and there was a chorus of _goodnight_ s which, for the first time, included Sam calling, “Sleep well, kid.” Steve did the thing again – he looked back, almost urgently, then saw Bucky and a smile split onto his face like the sun spilling beams of light as it clipped above the horizon, and Bucky returned the look, grateful. Steve followed him out to the hall, and caught him as he was headed into his room.

           “Hey,” he said, “Buck.”

           Bucky turned around. He gave Steve a tired grin. “Been a long day,” he said. “The whole brainwashing thing takes a lot out of you. Think I’m used to much longer naps in between.” He still grinned, but he imagined, suddenly, that it didn’t look like a grin at all anymore: just like a skeleton baring its teeth. If Steve noticed, he didn’t say anything.

           “You okay?” asked Steve.

           “Swell,” answered Bucky, and he meant it sincerely. Steve didn’t have the heart to let him know how unkind the twenty-first century had been to that term. “You?”

           “I’ll live,” said Steve. There was a short silence between them, where they regarded each other shortly. Then Steve asked, “You sure this whole – the words, and the triggering, and the brainwashing. Are you sure that’s okay?”

           “Yeah, Steve,” replied Bucky, feeling as if he’d answered this question a hundred times in the past few weeks. “Look, I trust you. And it’s a good idea. You heard Natasha, we’re making progress.”

           “I know,” said Steve, and he sounded a little apologetic, but also a little hurt. “It just – fucks with me to see you that way. That’s all.”

           Bucky watched him for a minute, and then a real grin split out on his face. “Aw, jeez, don’t get all corny on me,” he said, punching Steve in the shoulder. “Because I’d bet you ten bucks it fucks with me more.”

           Steve shook his head, and he went in for a hug, which Bucky returned as best he could with the one arm, thinking about how strange it felt, to be holding Steve, and being the shorter one in the embrace.

           Then Steve pulled away, still holding Bucky by the shoulders, and he asked, “You know ten bucks is worth a whole lot less than it used to be, right?”

           Once Steve had returned to join the others, Bucky headed into his room, gently closing his door behind him. He went to his bedside table, then frowned. He opened a drawer, then closed it again, then rifled through the sheets on the bed, searching for something.

           “Looking for this?”

           Bucky turned around to see Natasha at his now open door, holding up a small rectangular object. “Actually, yes,” he said.

           After a beat’s pause, he held out his hand. Her eyes, in the low light of the room, seemed to reflect no light at all, as if artificial. She strode across the room and placed the iPod gently into his hand, her touch lingering on her palm as she did so. “I went back up to fifteen minute intervals,” she told him, casually. “I thought we might as well give you a break.”

           “Aw, what?” he asked, giving her a sheepish smile. “I don’t get you whispering sweet nothings into my ear anymore?”

           Natasha was made of steel, so it was hard to tell, but Bucky thought he detected a hint of a flush on her cheeks. “You were conscious for that part of the recording?”

           “I don’t know,” he sighed in reply, closing his fist around the iPod, and around her hand. “Not really, but it’s all starting to come back. Steve’s voice, on the tapes. Someone reading my letter. You put all that together?” She nodded. “Well, thanks. Think that was what got me out of it.”

           “That’s what I’m here for,” she said quietly.

           He held her hand for a moment longer. Then he let go, wrapping the cord of the earbuds around his fingers as smoothly as if he were flicking a knife between his bruised knuckles.

           “You know,” he added, setting the iPod down carefully on his bedside table. “I really thought it was gonna work. Really thought I was gonna be able to stay straight, even with those words in my head.

           Figuring Bucky didn’t know enough about modern terminology to realize the double entendre he’d just laid down, Natasha cocked her head and watched him take a seat on his bed. He ran his hand through his hair. “Why?” she asked.

           He gave her a look, then reached out to take the iPod again. “You realize I’m ninety-eight, right?” he asked derisively. “Not stupid?”

           “You’re ninety-nine, actually,” she answered, then gestured to him. “But go on.”

           He looked up at her, then narrowed his eyes. “Wait. What year is it?”

           “James.”

           With his one arm, he held up the iPod, high enough that it was almost level with her face. He tapped the side button with his thumb. “You can skip through,” he said. “Boom, boom, boom. No waiting fifteen minutes for the next word. All at once. Get ‘er done.”

           Natasha made a face. “I hate that expression.”

           “Sorry.”

           “You’ve been triggering yourself?” she asked, taking the iPod out of his hands. He nodded. “And you’ve been resisting?” He nodded. “How?”

           There was a long pause. All of the sudden he looked very guilty, even as he lifted his shoulders and his one hand in a very sincere shrug, and it hit Natasha before he even spoke.

           “I followed your advice,” he confessed, at the same second she said, “Oh, God.”

           “Hey,” he protested, leaning forward, face tilted up at her. “It worked. Replace the threat of pain with the promise of pleasure. Worked like a fucking charm.”

           “Oh my God,” she groaned, dumbstruck. “That was a shot in the dark. That a goddamn placebo, you absolute caveman.”

           “It’s perfectly natural!”

           “But it’s useless in a practical setting." As if the implications of what Bucky was saying suddenly hit her, she almost dropped the iPod, holding it gingerly between forefinger and thumb, then dropping it into Bucky’s open hand. “A HYDRA agent isn’t likely to wait for you to _climax_ before he says all the words-”

           “Alright, sure,” he said, holding up his hand in surrender, “Yesterday proved your point. Turns out I’m not as strong as I thought I was. And it’s not like I was about to whip out the Cyclone right there in front of everybody.”

           “Oh, my God,” said Natasha, sounding solidly halfway between disappointment and disgust. Bucky laughed. “ _James_ , be serious.”

           “It’s a joke,” he said, but he couldn’t beat back the grin. He reached out, pawing at her side, landing his hand safely above her hip. “I’m joking, it’s an old joke. You know, Coney Island, _wanna ride the Cyclone?_ Ah – you wouldn’t get it.”

           “I can’t believe this,” sighed Natasha. “I know I defected, but I’m weeping for Mother Russia right now. The deadliest assassin in all of human history, and he has a stupid name for his-”

           There was a knock on the half-open door, and Natasha cut off abruptly, twisting around. Bucky leaned over to see past her torso, to see Sam hovering at the door. “My bad,” he said, holding up his hand. “I’ll come back later.”

           Bucky dropped his hand from Natasha’s side, and she stepped aside, making it very plainly clear that nothing was happening between the two of them. “It’s fine,” she said.

           “Join the party,” said Bucky, and Natasha shot him a death glare.

           Suspiciously, Sam looked in between the two of them for a moment. Then he asked Natasha, “You got that iPod thing he’s always listening to?”

           Natasha looked at Bucky, who held it up.

           In response, Sam held up an old-school USB stick. He tossed it across the room, but before it reached Bucky, Natasha’s hand shot out and she caught it. As she inspected the thing, Bucky asked, “What’s that?”

           “The playlist,” answered Sam, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Told you I’d make one, right?”

           Almost in pity, Natasha said, “Oh, Sam. You made him a mixtape?”

           “It’s a playlist,” he repeated, with a chilly glare her way. “He’s got seventy-five years’ worth of music to catch up on, I’m doing the man a favor.”

           “There was this one handler who liked to play music during training exercises,” said Bucky matter-of-factly, frowning slightly, as if trying to recall a long-lost memory. “Terrible song. It sounded like that polka shit Steve used to like, except a hundred times worse.”

           “I’m not surprised. Soviet music was pretty bad,” said Natasha grimly, at the same time that Sam asked, disbelievingly, “Steve liked _polka?_ ”

           “Thanks,” laughed Bucky, not responding to this. He held the iPod out towards Natasha. “Can you put it on there for me?”

           Still wary, Natasha held up the USB stick. “What’s even on here? Wasn’t Steve’s just Marvin Gaye’s entire discography and Beyoncé’s first solo album?”

           “First of all, Natasha, don’t be rude,” Sam said, holding up his hand to silence her. “It was an extensive list, alright? And yes, my man Marvin and my girl Beyoncé were on there. But don’t lie, they’d be on your mix too.”

           “Thanks,” said Bucky again, if only to interrupt any more of Natasha judging Sam’s taste in music. “I appreciate it, man. I’ll listen to it tonight.”

           Natasha shot a look at Bucky. “Oh, you will, will you?”

           Without batting an eyelid, Bucky replied, “Unless you have a playlist of your own, Natasha.”

           She didn’t say anything, glowering at him. Once more Sam looked in between the two of them, then he said, “Alright. So. You’re welcome.” There was an awkward pause, and then he added, “G’night,” and then he left. He closed the door behind him.

           Bucky grinned up at Natasha, and she rolled her eyes. “Stick with the words, for now,” she said. “You did okay yesterday, maybe your method is working.”

           “It’s _your_ method,” he pointed out mildly. “And, hey, don’t you think I’ve earned a night off? Why can’t I listen to Sam’s playlist?”

           “Because Sam’s playlist isn’t going to help you-” she broke off midsentence, her eyes narrowing slightly.

           Bucky didn’t seem to notice; there was a gleeful pout in his lips as he clicked his tongue and said, “ _Vdova_ , please, are you jealous-?”

           But Natasha wasn’t listening. Holding the USB stick in one hand, she looked down at it, then up at Bucky, her eyes blazing.

           “You said you had a trainer who liked to play music,” she began.

           “Handler,” he corrected. At her expression, he waved his hand. “Doesn’t matter.”

           “But the song,” she repeated. “Just one song?”

           “I think so,” answered Bucky. “Just one really, really bad song.”

           “And what were they training you in?”

           “It was-” Bucky hesitated, looking up at her guardedly. “Hand-to-hand. Combat training.”

           “James,” she said; she knelt down on one knee before the side of the bed, so that he was now looking down to look into her face. “It wasn’t for pleasure. That was part of your training. Conditioning you to memorize movements to a rhythm.”

           He didn’t seem convinced. “You think so?”

           “Believe me,” she said, searching in his eyes. “I know.” There was a slight, loaded pause, and then she held up the USB. “I have an idea.”

           Although still slightly reticent, Bucky took a deep breath. “Well, your last idea was so much fun, so…let’s hear it.”

           With her other hand, she reached out to pluck the iPod from his. “You should listen to this playlist tonight,” she said. “And you’re going to pick a favorite song, and tomorrow morning you’re going to tell me what it is. Then I’ll put my voice over the song for you, and you do-” she gave an unpleasant grimace, “-your thing, and then we can introduce the song into our sessions with Steve. If you can associate the act of resistance with the sound of the song rather than a physical action, we might be able to really get somewhere.”

           Bucky’s eyes flickered down to the USB stick, then up to Natasha’s eyes. “That could work,” he said.

           She gave him a little smile, then shrugged. “It’s worth a try, right?”

—

           Standing before the little screen which showed Bucky seated on the cot in the middle of the panic room, Natasha closed her eyes as if in physical pain. “I blame you for this,” she muttered to Sam, who stood beside her.

           Sam just shook his head, lips pressed tightly together. “Hundred and two songs on that playlist, Nat. Hundred and two, and of course he had to pick this one.”

           “Hey,” said Steve. “I think it’s a great song.”

           “Aw, come on, Nat,” added Clint, grinning up at her. “It’s a classic. _Turn around, bright eyes_ -”

           “Barton, I swear to God-”

           “I don’t even know why I put it on the list,” Sam said hollowly. “It’s so bad.”

           Leaning forward, Natasha said, “The longer we wait, the longer we have to listen to it. Steve, get it over with. And don’t quit before the money shot this time, alright?”

—

           It didn’t work, but it also drowned out Bucky’s screams, and Steve insisted he actually did like the song so, no matter how miserable it made Natasha and Sam, they suffered through most of “Total Eclipse of the Heart” twice a week in the name of Bucky’s recovery.

           It was during one of these sessions, which were beginning to turn into elaborate karaoke opportunities for Clint, Scott, and Wanda – Steve was on “ _benign_ ” – when a cell phone tucked into a drawer beside his bed began to ring shrilly. Occupied as he was, Steve didn’t hear it go off. After they finally turned off the song, after Bucky’s ugly utterance Steve had come to hate so much, “ _Ya gotov otvechat_ ,” and after they did what they always did and put him to bed, Natasha’s playlist of her own tucked into his ears; after Steve went to bed himself, laid in the dark for a while and struggled, as usual, with the _wrongness_ of doing this to his friend paired with the absolute necessity of it – it was only then, feeling ill and longing for some form of distraction, that Steve opened the drawer by his bed and pulled out a plain burner phone, and he opened it, and a little notification caused his heart to skip a beat.

            _One (1) new message_.


	6. Chapter 6

            Bucky was up early the next morning, which was good; even if it didn’t obviously seem like he was making any progress resisting, it seemed to be lasting a shorter and shorter period each time. Only Clint was already awake by then – he glanced up and gave Bucky a little nod when Bucky entered the kitchen rubbing at his eyes tiredly, and then Clint returned to his phone’s little screen. “Hey, you be good today, okay?” he said, giving a stern look into the phone’s camera. “And good luck with your presentation, Coop, you’re gonna kill it. Alright. Have a good day, guys. Love you.” Bucky poured himself a bowl of cereal; he took a banana too, the flavor and texture of which he still didn’t like, but which he’d resigned himself to, and cut it up with a spoon, dropping each slice onto his cereal. Behind him, Clint lowered his voice. “Yeah, Laura. I know. I don’t know, I wish I – I wish I could tell you. Yeah.” There was a pause, then he added, “Okay. Listen, I called Kate, she says she’s around if you need anything. Anything, you call her. She’ll get there faster’n I can. Yeah. Love you too.”

            Taking a seat at the counter, cereal bowl in hand, Bucky watched Clint set his phone down then tap something on his hearing aids to turn off the Bluetooth connection. “That your wife?” asked Bucky, nodding at the phone.

            Clint glanced up at him, then nodded. “Yeah. I like to say hi to the kids before they go to school. Just so they know I’m still kickin'.”

            “Two girls, right?”

            “One girl,” replied Clint. “Two boys.”

            “How old?”

            With a little, almost wistful sigh, Clint leaned back slightly in his seat. “Cooper’s ten,” he answered. “Lila’s seven, and Nate’s coming up on fourteen months.”

            “Aw, man,” said Bucky, sounding genuinely surprised. “You got a baby at home?”

            “Yeah, I got a baby,” replied Clint, with a bitter smile. “You wanna see pictures?”

            “Sure.”

            Clint picked up his phone again, swiping through a few shots, then he showed them to Bucky, whose face broke out in a big, sweet smile. “Ah, wow,” he said. “Look at that.”

            “That’s Coop, my oldest,” said Clint, pointing at the picture. “That’s Lila, and she’s holding the baby.”

            “Hey,” said Bucky, tapping the screen. “My sister’s kid was about that age when I enlisted. Good baby, good, good baby. Only time I ever heard her cry was when her daddy shipped out, a little before me.”

            “That’s sweet,” said Clint, taking his phone back.

            “Yeah,” said Bucky, “it’s real sweet.”

            In the momentary pause between speech, Bucky dropped his gaze back to his bowl, a bittersweet smile barely managing to tug his lips back. Clint asked, “You ever think about looking her up? Your sister, I mean.”

            “Becca?” asked Bucky, raising his eyebrows. “Oh, no. She was vain as all hell, probably died young just outta spite, so she’d never get all old and wrinkly.” A soft smile graced Bucky’s face. “No,” he repeated. “God rest her soul, but I’d bet you anything that woman’s long gone.”

            “What about the baby? She’d be a grown woman by now.”

            “Yeah,” sighed Bucky, “she’d be about eighty. Probably kids and grandkids of her own.”

            He paused, looking down at his half-eaten bowl of cereal going all soggy.

            “Nah,” he said, with a little shake of his head. “Nobody wants to get a knock on their door someday just to be told they’re related to some Soviet assassin mass murderer.”

            “Hey,” said Clint reasonably, with a very paternal punch on the shoulder. “That’s a little harsh.”

            Bucky didn’t respond for a moment, then looked up at Clint and grinned. “You’re right,” he said. “I ain’t no Soviet son of a bitch.”

            Clint took a moment, watching Bucky, and then he just shook his head and grinned. “Atta boy.”

            It was a few hours later that Steve appeared, stony-faced. “Sam,” he muttered. “Would you mind getting everybody? I need to talk to all of you.”

            With raised eyebrows and a hint of interest on his face, Sam got up from where he sat with Bucky and Natasha – Bucky was trying to teach them an old card game, which even Steve didn’t quite remember the rules of – said, “You got it,” and headed out to find the others.

            “What’s up?” asked Natasha.

            In lieu of reply, Steve only stood between Bucky and Natasha, then held something up, and set it down on the counter before them.

            “Oh,” said Natasha, her eyes on the old flip phone. “Shit.”

            “Is that Stark’s phone?” asked Bucky, confused. “Did you hear from him?”

            “Kind of,” replied Steve grimly.

            “It was a matter of time,” said Natasha, leaning in. “Something was bound to happen. Something always happens. What is it this time? Aliens or robots?”

            Steve shook his head stiffly. “Wish it were that simple.”

            “That doesn’t sound good,” said Bucky, as Sam returned with Clint, Scott, and Wanda in tow. As Sam recognized the phone on the counter, he took his seat again, looking up at Steve expectantly.

            “End of the world?” he asked. “Let’s go. Let’s do this.”

            Steve shook his head, but his expression betrayed nothing. “Not quite.”

            He flipped open the phone, then went to voicemail.

            “I got this,” he said, “last night.”

            He hit a button, and the tinny, artificial sound of a voice muttering unintelligible words filled up the small space. Clint leaned in, and Bucky frowned; Natasha’s expression didn’t change, but she sat there silently, listening.

            “ _But it – but – anyway, b-but, Steve, it’s just that, it’s that, I just, Steve_ -”

            “Is he drunk?” asked Bucky, glancing up at Steve.

            “Ah, man,” said Sam, grinning and shaking his head. “Steve, your booty calls are your business-”

            “Just listen,” said Steve, clearly not in the mood for Sam’s jokes. 

            Sensing how serious this was, Sam fell silent. Tony’s drunken ramblings went on for half a minute more, mostly unintelligible apart from the odd phrase – Sam was sure he heard, “ _-but –_ you’d _be mad, it’s not my fault, anyone’d be mad_ -” and “ _dick move, Cap_ ,” but not much else. It went on so long that it started to feel a little awkward; Scott glanced around with that _should-I-even-be-here_ look he got sometimes, and Wanda starting twisting one of her rings around her finger over and over.

            Then, finally, there was a sudden shock of noise from the phone, something loud and crashing – then there was Tony’s heaving breaths, and the sound of gunfire, and then the message cut off.

            No one said anything at first. Steve picked up the phone again.

            “I got word this morning that Tony’s been missing since last night,” he said. “Far as I can tell, since he left this message.”

            Glancing up at Steve darkly, Clint asked, “Is this _missing-_ missing or is this haven’t-yet-recovered-the-body missing?”

            “Considering Tony’s track record,” added Natasha, “those both typically amount to the same thing.”

            “How’d you even hear about this?” asked Scott. “I feel like it’d be on the news if Tony Stark was kidnapped”

            “Too soon to say kidnapped,” said Clint, straightening up with his arms folded across his chest. “Let’s stick with _missing_ for now.”

            “How _did_ you find out about this?” asked Natasha, looking up at Steve, her gaze hard and long. “Did you call someone?”

            Steve met her gaze for a second, unyielding, and then he let out a little breath. “In my defense,” he began, but Natasha was already rolling her eyes.

            “Steve, come on. We’re in hiding for a reason, you can’t just call whoever the f-”

            “I was concerned,” said Steve stubbornly, “and I knew Colonel Rhodes would have valuable information-”

            “ _Rhodes_?” echoed Sam, betrayed. “Steve, we’re on the run from the law! And that dude is the exactly law from which we are running!”

            Ignoring all of this, Steve barreled forward. “He understands our situation,” he told them. “He said if we wanted to help find Tony, he’d be willing to look the other way.”

            “I can’t believe this,” said Natasha, her eyes burning with anger. “I give up so much for this, and you’re willing to throw it all back in the second Stark just _might_ be in danger.”

            “That’s not all,” said Steve. He took out his regular phone, the encrypted one which was part of the set Natasha had procured for the whole team. Opening up the photo application, he handed it, to everyone’s surprise, to Bucky.

            Immediately, Natasha slipped past Sam to lean over Bucky’s shoulder. She blinked and then her eyes went wide.

            “These are mine,” said Bucky, frowning down at the phone. He looked up at Steve, then turned the phone around to show the rest of them a photo of three massive bullets lodged in an Iron Man suit display case. “Those are my slugs.”

            “What?” asked Wanda, confused. “What does that mean?”

            “I was issued a modified M107 rifle about ten years ago,” explained Bucky. “I’ve used it ever since. Those rounds come from that gun.”

            Wanda asked, “You can recognize your bullets from a picture?”

            Clint nudged her with his elbow. “The man’s a professional, Wanda. This is his business.”

            “I thought it was the only weapon of its kind,” muttered Bucky, looking up at Steve. “And I just assumed it got lost in the chaos in D.C.”

            “So what?” asked Sam, leaning in past Natasha. “So some HYDRA goon picked up your gun and decided to try and assassinate Iron Man? Why? Why now?”

            “I don’t know,” answered Bucky, shaking his head. “But right now I’m just impressed they didn’t immediately assume it was me.”

            Bucky probably wasn’t watching Steve, but Natasha caught the slight flicker in his expression which betrayed what was, she was sure, the very first question Rhodey must’ve asked.

            “You think it was another Winter Soldier?” asked Sam.

            “No,” answered Bucky and Steve at the same time. Steve said, “Zemo killed the others.”

            “Yeah,” said Bucky, inspect the picture once more. “And a Winter Soldier wouldn’t have missed. Definitely not three damn times.”

            Natasha’s eyes glided over Bucky’s face. “Do I detect a hint of pride, _Soldat_?”

            “Alright, so,” said Steve, leaning in, “what we have is a presumed HYDRA agent who went after Tony, possibly capturing him, for reasons unknown.”

            “You don’t shoot at a guy three times to kidnap him,” said Bucky simply. “Unless for some reason HYDRA might’ve wanted the body-”

            “That’s dark,” muttered Sam.

            “-my guess is that Stark’s alive, but he knows he’s being hunted, so he’s hiding.”

            “Not unlikely,” said Natasha. “He’s done it before.”

            There was a pregnant pause, then Steve tucked his phone back in his pocket. “Alright,” he said. “Suit up.”

            Natasha’s eyes flashed. “For what, exactly?”

            Without meeting her gaze, Steve replied, “We’re gonna go take a look at the crime scene.”

            “And where is that?” asked Sam, his voice sharp. “The compound?”

            “The Tower, actually,” Steve answered mildly.

            “Steve, do I really have to remind you that we’re on the _run_ from these people-?”

            “I told you,” said Steve stubbornly. “Rhodes said we could help, no questions asked.”

            “You ever consider this whole thing could be a trick?” asked Clint seriously, eyeing Steve from across the countertop. “That Tony left you that message on purpose, to flush you out of hiding?”

            “No,” said Steve coolly. “I never considered that.”

            “I don’t want to go,” said Wanda.

            Words faded in mouths half-formed, and the group of them around the counter fell silent. Steve looked up at Wanda, a small crease on his brow.

            Quietly, Wanda said, “You know I have no love for Tony Stark. And it’s different, for me. If they catch you, you go to prison.” She hesitated. Steve looked away, glancing at Bucky, then lowering his gaze. Under the countertop, Wanda flicked one of her fingers slightly, and with a small spark of glittering red, Steve felt his face pulled upwards as if someone pushed him up by his chin, forcing him to look Wanda in the eye. She said, “If they catch me, I go to a laboratory.”

            Clint glanced between Wanda and Steve. “I’m with her,” he said, with no trace of reluctance.

            Steve let out a deep breath, silently calculating his odds. “Fine,” he said. “Scott, stay here with them. Natasha, Sam, and I’ll go.”

            “Um – and me,” said Bucky.

            “No,” replied Steve, shaking his head. “You stay here.”

            “No chance,” said Bucky, shaking his head. “I’m with you ‘til the end of the line, pal.”

            “You only have one arm,” said Steve, gesturing to the stub of Bucky’s shoulder. “And that was your best weapon.”

            Tapping his head, Bucky said, “No, this is my best weapon.”

            “Which, frankly, isn’t in the greatest working condition either.”

            “Steven, please,” said Bucky, with such an air of firm finality that the rest of the group exchanged looks of surprise; it was strange, to see the Winter Soldier talk to Captain America as if he were Cap’s mother. “You and I both know I’ve followed you into the jaws of death with less than this before. And if this is HYDRA, then you’ll be outgunned _without_ me no matter what. I know that pile of garbage better than anyone. I can work intel.”

            A muscle in Steve’s jaw jumped in frustration. “And you don’t think Natasha can handle that?”

            “I think he should come.”

            Steve’s gaze flickered up, to where Natasha stood beside Bucky, her arm lain out across the back of his seat. She gave Steve a steely smile.

            “If nothing else,” she said, “it’ll give him a chance to have a rematch with Tony.”

            Steve gestured once more at Bucky’s missing arm. “Because that went so well last time.”

            “Well, maybe this time you won’t be there to hold him back-”

            “Natasha,” muttered Bucky, cutting her off before the words were even fully out of her mouth. She didn’t move for a moment, standing protectively beside Bucky. Steve held her gaze for a moment longer, then dropped it, looking out at the rest of the group.

            “Fine,” said Steve. “Wanda, Scott, Clint, you stay here. Natasha, Sam, Bucky – you’re with me.” He stopped, glancing around the group. “Everybody okay with that?”

            The general consensus, while not enthusiastic, seemed mostly positive. “I’d like to note, this decision was made without any input from me,” said Sam, as they headed out. “Like, you just said my name, man, I didn’t get a say in this at all.”

            “Okay,” said Steve. “What’s your say, Sam?”

            Sam glowered at Steve. “I mean, I’m coming,” he said. “I ain’t gonna like it, but I’m coming.”

            As the others suited up, Steve went to run checks on the Quinjet. He sat in the pilot’s seat, flipping switches, checking levels. “Voice control test,” he said out loud. “Command recognition.”

            “ _Command recognition on. List commands for test_.”

            He went through the regular list of commands, which wasn’t strictly necessary, but the others were taking their sweet time and he thought they might as well be prepared. It wasn’t long until he ran out of things to double-check, and he sat there in the pilot’s seat dumbly, waiting.

            Someone knocked on the metallic side of the Quinjet as they entered, and Steve turned around. Bucky grinned at him, then kicked at a locker in the side of the jet; when it opened, he knelt down and carefully unpacked a duffel bag full of weapons, placing each gently into its spot.

            Steve noticed Bucky had extra weapons strapped to his body, particularly along his left side. This seemed counterintuitive, as Bucky had no left arm with which to grab said weapons, until Steve realized the strategic placement wasn’t for ease of access so much as it was to balance out Bucky’s body weight, which had been thrown off since losing the heavy, dense metal arm.

            After a moment’s silence, Steve asked, “Sam and Nat on their way?”

            Bucky shrugged. “They’ll get here.” He closed the locker, then dropped into the nearest seat. “They’re dragging their feet out of spite,” he added. “I don’t think they care about Stark as much as you do.”

            Steve didn’t answer right away. “You must be thinking the same thing,” he said quietly.

            “Me?” asked Bucky. He waved his hand glibly, dismissing the possibility. “Nah. You’re forgetting I knew you before any of them, before you were a soldier. I get it.”

            “You get why I’d want to go looking for the man who almost killed you?”

            “Look,” said Bucky, leaning forward in his seat. “First of all, it’s not like he was the first guy to ever try and off me. I try not to take it personally.” He gave Steve a rakish grin, like a ghost from eighty years ago. “Second of all – think about the soldiers who killed your father back in the First War. They were just following orders, but don’t tell me you wouldn’t hesitate to kill any of ‘em. Hell,” continued Bucky, with a shrug, “how many German soldiers did we waste? And how many of them were true believers, you think, and how many were just doing what they were told?”

            “That’s different,” said Steve. “You didn’t have a choice.”

            “Hey,” said Bucky, leaning back in his seat. “Even our side had the draft. And I bet you and I can think of a couple boys who joined up because they didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

            Steve dropped his head slightly, massaging his forehead with his hand. “It’s not the same,” he murmured.

            “Whatever,” replied Bucky, checking his belt compartments for his explosives. “Point is, you’ve never been the perfect soldier, Steve. War doesn’t come naturally to you,” at Steve’s look, heavy and almost insulted, Bucky added, “which is a good thing. Me and Natasha and even Sam – we’d walk away from this. From Stark. You can’t do that,” he said, “no matter how much of a gaping fucking asshole the guy is.”

            “Bucky,” said Steve, a one-word reprimand, but Bucky only grinned back at him as two others finally entered the jet. Natasha filled a locker same as Bucky, except with perhaps a little more urgency, then took a seat beside Steve. Sam buckled in next to Bucky.

            “You driving, Rogers?” asked Natasha, priming the jet’s controls.

            “Unless you’d like to.”

            Smoothly, without looking up, she answered, “I think I would,” and Steve shot a roll of his eyes back at Bucky and Sam, who both tried not to laugh as he switched places with Natasha.

            “Alright,” said Sam, as the jet lifted off, out of its covert hangar and towards the clear California sky, “time to go save the World’s Mightiest Asshole.”

            “ _Sam_ ,” said Steve, but Bucky laughed, and Natasha didn’t blink, her hands steady on the controls – although there might’ve been a hint of a smile tugging at her lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the late update! Regular posting will resume on Friday.
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who has commented and left kudos! I really appreciate the feedback and support. Hope you enjoyed!


	7. Chapter 7

            They switched to a helicopter at a low-profile location outside of New York, and alit on the helipad of the Avengers Tower – which Steve still found terribly ugly, no matter the name in lights across the front – a little past dusk. It was late enough to be getting dark, but not so late that the work day was over for everyone, so the skyscrapers of New York City were sketched out like graphical representations, tiny blocks of light filling out massive towers. Lifetimes ago, this had been Bucky’s favorite time in the city: when things started to wind down, when you could still run around on street corners before your mother called you inside because it was getting dark. It was a half-shadow time, when a kid in Brooklyn could pretend he was a lot tougher than he was. Steve had always preferred the daytime; his eyesight was bad when he was little, all cloudy, and he hadn’t been able to see so well in low light.

            Pepper and Rhodey greeted them on the helipad, Pepper in sensible flats, a gray cardigan wrapped around her thin frame, and Rhodey in a wheelchair. When Bucky stepped off the helicopter, Pepper said, “Woah, oh my God, hold on,” and Steve tensed, thinking her objection was to his presence there at all – and then she pointed down his body and said, “No firearms, not in this building.”

            “Pepper,” said Natasha, the voice of reason. “There was an assassin here yesterday, coming in armed is just a precaution-”

            “Sorry,” said Pepper, shaking her head firmly. “Stark Industries is a strictly weapons-free business, and there are no guns permitted in this building.”

            Rhodey grinned wryly up at Steve, who shot a smile and a respectful nod back at him. “Thanks for coming,” said Rhodey, holding his hand out for Steve to shake. “I know this can’t be easy for you, after how we left things.”

            “Sam’s the one you should be thanking,” said Steve, pointing to Sam. Behind them, Bucky was unloading all his weapons into the floor of the helicopter. Every time Pepper thought he was done, he somehow managed to pull something else out of God-knows-where. “He’s the one here I had to break out of prison. Pepper,” he said, shaking her hand as she tried to tear her gaze away from Bucky, who was still, somehow, producing weaponry.

             They headed into an elevator, Bucky having finally stripped himself of all arms. “You know I can’t condone what you did at the Raft,” Rhodey said to Steve, pushing a button on the elevator. “But I’m also not sure I can condone the way they imprisoned your people there without a trial. And honestly, I was surprised when I got your call – Tony told me what happened. After what went down in Siberia, I would’ve thought you’d want nothing to do with us. By the way,” Rhodey twisted in his chair, holding out his hand behind his shoulder, towards Bucky, “I don’t think we’ve officially met, apart from that time I arrested you. I’m James.”

            “Oh,” said Bucky, as if surprised Rhodey was actually speaking to him. He took his hand. “Me too. But you can call me Bucky.”

            Rhodey nodded, shaking Bucky’s hand. “Then you can call me Jim.”

            “Pepper, I have to ask,” said Natasha, as the elevator let out a gentle _ding_ and the doors opened. “Your security-”

            “Won’t know you’re here,” Pepper assured them. “The top six floors have been shut down since last night, and whoever it was that – was here, they fried the cameras in the Penthouse. We can’t get them back up.”

            “They got through Iron Man’s security tech?” asked Sam, in awed skepticism. With a sidelong glance at Bucky, he murmured, “Some amateur, huh?”

            The Penthouse looked surprisingly clean for a place that just saw a would-be assassination. The slugs were still buried in the display cases, and there was a shattered decanter of scotch on the floor but, Steve figured, that might have more to do with Tony’s drunken voicemail than the shooter. The far window was covered by a tarp that flapped limply in the wind.

            Without another glance, Bucky crossed the wide space to inspect the display cases which had been shot. Pepper almost raised her voice in protest, but Rhodey said, “Let him do his thing. He’s been doing this a lot longer than the rest of us.”

            Her voice lowered, Pepper replied under her breath, “Sure, but for the other team, from what I’ve heard.”

            “You’re not wrong, Pepper,” said Steve plainly. “And whatever you’ve heard from Tony, he wasn’t wrong either. But Bucky didn’t do those things, those things were done to him. It’s an important distinction.”

            Pepper watched Steve for a second, as if deciding to trust him. Then she sighed, “Right. I know. And there’s nobody better for this job than an ex-assassin himself.”

            “Y’know,” said Sam. “I kinda think we should start using a different word for the guy. He likes cat videos on Youtube, and he can’t figure out how to work his cell phone for the life of him. _Assassin_ doesn’t really fit.”

            “I’ve always thought ex-POW had a nice ring to it,” said Natasha coldly.

            Pepper looked visibly troubled.

            “Steve,” said Rhodey. “You said you got a message from Tony?”

            “Yeah,” answered Steve, rooting around on his person for the little cell phone. “It’s not that coherent, but it’s something.”

            “Let’s hear it.”

            Steve flipped open the phone, and played the rambling voicemail. Pepper, who was already on edge, closed her eyes. Halfway in, she covered her face with one hand, and Rhodey reached out and took hold of her other hand with a very slight, very sad shake of his head. It wasn’t until the message played out that Steve noticed how shaken up Pepper was; still covering her eyes, she wiped at her cheeks with the heel of her hand. Reaching out a hand to hover at her elbow, Steve asked lowly, “Are you alright?”

            Pepper took a long, deep breath, then nodded. When she looked up at them, any trace of tears wasn’t visible: even her makeup was still perfect. “Tony and I…” she paused, as if struggling for words. “We’ve been on-again-off again for some time,” she explained. “I gave up trying to get him to quit making the suits, so…I thought I’d tackle drinking instead. Which is one of the reasons why we’re currently off-again.”

            Rhodey, still holding Pepper’s hand, spoke up. “He was trying,” he said, glancing up at Steve. “I talked to him a couple days ago, and it’d been two weeks. Which is an accomplishment for him, believe me.”

            “I do,” said Steve. “I’m sorry, Pepper.”

            “No, it’s not your fault,” answered Pepper, shaking her head. She smiled bitterly at Steve, then patted him gratefully on the arm, reciprocating his touch. “And it’s not why we’re here.”

            Across the Penthouse, Bucky stood up straight. “What happened to this window?” he called, pointing at the shattered pane of glass, covered by a hastily taped-up sheet of tarp.

             “It got shot out,” responded Rhodey, his voice raised across the Penthouse. “Forensics say the shooter was probably in that building,” Rhodey pointed out the window, across at another skyscraper, “but their security didn’t catch anything either.”

            “No,” said Bucky. “The shooter was here, inside.”

            Rhodey stared at Bucky. “That’s impossible,” he said.

            “Obviously not,” replied Bucky. Pointing at the slugs in the display cases, he said, “These are ricochets.”

            “Those are way too clean to be ricochets-”

            “Imagine if I’m standing here,” said Bucky, locating himself kitty-corner to the cases. “And the shooter is there,” he pointed across the room, “and I have tech capable of generating an electromagnetic field around me which propels bullets in an opposite direction without affecting momentum.”

            Rhodey, Pepper, Nat, Sam, and Steve stared at Bucky. He pinched his thumb and forefinger together, making an imaginary bullet, and mimed it coming towards him, then diverting off in another direction – directly towards where the bullets were buried.

            Bucky shrugged. “It explains why our guy missed three times.”

            Natasha looked back at Rhodey and Pepper. “Well,” she said. “There you go.”

            “Does Tony have something capable of generating an electromag force field like that?” asked Steve, seriously.

            Pepper and Rhodey shared uncertain looks. “It does sound like something he would develop,” admitted Rhodey.

            “It’s not anything I was aware of,” answered Pepper. “But he was on his own for a couple weeks, and when he gets lonely, he makes things.”

            “That’s kinda poetic,” said Bucky, from across the room; Pepper glanced around, startled, not having realized Bucky could hear her at all.

            “That still doesn’t explain how the shooter got inside,” Rhodey pointed out.

            Bucky gestured at the broken window, the tarp flapping in the wind.

            “Parachute in and blow out the window,” said Natasha, nodding her head. “Oldest trick in the book.”

            “Parachute?” echoed Pepper. “I’ve – there’s no way that didn’t register on security of some kind – can’t we check satellites or something?”

            “If our guy’s as good as these two,” Sam said, gesturing to Bucky and Natasha, “then chances are he covered all his bases, and none of your security is going to turn up much.”

            “So what happened to the shooter?” asked Pepper.

            “Well,” said Steve, looking around. “I think the real question is, what happened to Tony?”

            “No,” said Bucky, crossing the room, joining the rest of them by a series of Tony’s expensive couches. “The real question is what did the shooter want.”

            “You know,” said Rhodey, slowly looking up at Bucky, an ugly look in his eye, “you talk an awful lot for being the last guy who tried to kill Tony.”

            Bucky returned Rhodey’s gaze, but otherwise didn’t blink. “He was trying to kill me,” he said.

            “Oh, so that makes it okay?”

            With some discomfort, Bucky’s hand flickered reflexively to his belt; there were no guns there, and he glanced up at Steve, looking oddly lost for a second, before reaching his hand over to rest gently on his blasted-off shoulder. “Listen,” he said to Rhodey, and he didn’t sound aggressive so much as slightly awkward. “You saw what I did in D.C., and Bucharest, and Berlin. Believe me. If I’d wanted Stark dead, he’d be dead.”

            “James,” sighed Natasha, shaking her head, and Steve too gave Bucky a pointed look.

            “Buck, come on,” he said. “We’re here to help.”

            “I know,” answered Bucky, holding up his hand, palm facing upwards. “That’s what I’m trying to do.”

            Pepper, her arms crossed over her chest, looked at Steve. “I’m actually not sure I’m completely comfortable with this,” she said in a hushed tone, gesturing towards Bucky. “I thought it’d be okay, but just, the whole assassin, confirmed kills, you know-” her voice dropped to a whisper, “ _Tony’s parents_ thing-”

            “Oh, and you haven’t even seen him go into Winter Soldier berserker mode yet,” laughed Sam, shaking his head.

            “Sam,” said Steve, shooting a glare his direction.

            “I’m just saying,” said Sam, holding up his hands. He nodded at Bucky, who still stood there with one hand on his busted-up metal shoulder, which was covered by a sleeve they’d knotted off and cut for him. His hair was also bunched up in a tiny ponytail at the base of his head, and there was something about the deep-set eyes and the big mouth that made him look kind of pouty, like a kid who had been denied his favorite treat. “The guy’s practically a teddy bear right now,” Sam finished. “And if there’s any chance our assassin is HYDRA, there’s nobody better suited to track them down and tear them up than the Winter Soldier. He’s got a serious mad-on for all things Nazi.”

            “It happens,” said Natasha dryly, but defensively, “when they imprison you for seventy-five years and use you as their personal attack dog.”

            “Hey,” said Steve, his glare halfway to a scowl. “Let him speak for himself, would you?”

            They all looked over at Bucky, who had a sort of blank look on his face. “Yeah,” he said, shifting slightly to face Rhodey and Pepper. He nodded towards Sam and Natasha. “What they said.”

            Both Pepper and Rhodey regarded Bucky wearily, Pepper with more than a little hint of fear. Then Rhodey glanced up at Bucky and said: “Fine. Just don’t be disrespectful about Tony. Or any of this.”

            “I wasn’t,” answered Bucky. “What happened to the shooter, what happened to Tony – it all depends on what the shooter wanted. If he wanted some kind of tech, something Tony was building, then he would’ve stuck around – he could even still be in the building.”

            This seemed to frighten Pepper, as it well should, and color leaked out of her face.

            “But I think that’s unlikely,” added Bucky quickly. “You don’t bring a gun like that to a robbery, not unless you’re expecting whoever it is you’re robbing to fight to the death to protect it. And I don’t see any bodies around here,” he continued, gesturing around, “or much sign of a struggle, for that matter. So, in my professional opinion – not what happened.”

            Pepper seemed to let out a breath no one even noticed she’d been holding. Her fists were tightly closed, knuckles gone white as she clung to the sweater around herself. “So you think Tony’s alive?”

            Bucky held up his finger. “I didn’t say that,” he said.

            “ _Buck_ ,” said Steve, shaking his head.

            “Well, okay, to rush to the point,” said Bucky, giving Steve a very, _okay, fine_ , kind of look, “yes. I do think he’s alive. But I’m getting ahead of myself.”

            “Can we skip the part where you go through twenty-nine different other scenarios of what could’ve happened,” said Rhodey, rolling his index finger, “and just get to what you think _did_ happen?”

            It was Natasha who stepped forward then. She pointed at the busted window, “Assassin comes in through there,” she pointed to the display cases, “shoots at Tony, who’s drunk-dialing Steve right there, bullets ricochet, Tony drops the phone,” she gestured to the room at large, “he immediately calls Mark Five-Hundred-and-Two or whatever-the-fuck he’s on, blasts our assassin at least once,” she pointed to the window beside the broken one, “and then takes off,” finished Natasha, pointing at the broken window again, “right out the way our assassin got in.”

            Rhodey and Pepper stared at her. “You’ve been here twenty minutes,” said Pepper.

            “Yeah,” said Bucky, nodding at Natasha. “That’s what I would’ve said."

            “You got all that in twenty minutes?” asked Pepper, in disbelief.

            “Come on,” said Bucky, giving Natasha a knowing glance, then looking at Pepper almost smugly. “It’s a little obvious.”

            “Really,” said Rhodey, unimpressed. “You wanna explain that one, Sherlock?”

            Bucky sighed, then turned and jogged back to his spot before the display cases.

            “If I’m here,” he began, “and I’ve just deflected those bullets,” he raised his one hand, aimed it at the imaginary assassin, “I can blast our guy from this angle, which,” he jogged across the room, towards the window beside the broken one, which Natasha had pointed to earlier, “isn’t enough to break the window, but is enough to leave a dent.”

            He produced a LED flashlight as bright as a mini floodlight, and focused it on the window pane; even at a distance, in the sudden direct light it was possible to see a thin crack in the reinforced glass.

            “Then,” continued Bucky, gesturing at the broken glass glittering on the shiny tiled floor, “the glass has been swept the opposite direction. Wind should only be pushing the glass shards in, not out. Which means some gust, like an iron robot body flying by, propelled the glass backwards.”

            “What if someone opened a window,” said Sam, “and there was a draft, and that was what moved the glass?”

            “Sure,” said Bucky, from across the Penthouse. “But then what the fuck happened to Tony?”

            Sam shrugged and made a face as if to say, _True_.

            Finally, Bucky headed across the Penthouse, returning to the others. There was an odd half-swagger to the way he walked, something that made Steve narrow his eyes slightly, trying to figure out what it was.

            This was the hyper-confident walk of the Winter Soldier, he decided, something to indicate that Bucky knew what he was doing, and he was in very fine control. But while Bucky may have adjusted, the Winter Soldier clearly had some trouble with the missing arm: it threw off his stride just enough to make him look obviously lopsided, which had the fine effect of essentially neutralizing what was intimidating about that stride to begin with, so now he just sort of looked…off-kilter.

            Steve glanced at Pepper and Rhodey, and saw with relief that they both noticed the same thing. Silently, he found himself for the first time grateful to Tony for blowing off Bucky’s arm. It was hard to be frightened of a guy when he was basically waddling back over to you.

            “What I don’t understand,” said Bucky, as he reached them, “is how he got into the suit so fast.”

            It was Pepper who spoke then, waving her hand to dismiss this concern. “He’s had this – prehensile tech for a while now,” she explained. “He waves his hands and it all comes flying and attaches to his body, piece by piece, in seconds.”

            “But you’re right,” said Natasha, nodding thoughtfully. “An assassin this advanced would’ve taken advantage of those few extra seconds.”

            Bucky nodded, a frown on his face. “It just doesn’t fit into the timeline.”

            “Unless,” said Rhodey; his voice was quiet, and his gaze was downcast, eyes focused on the floor, “he was already wearing the suit.”

            “Here?” asked Bucky, doubtfully. “At home?”

            The rest of the group gave him grim looks. “You don’t know Tony,” said Natasha darkly.

            Steve looked at Rhodey, frowning. “You think he was expecting an attack?”

            “No,” answered Rhodey, without looking up. His hands were flat on his thighs; he raised his right fingers just enough to massage at the dense, numb muscle there, as if that would bring sensation back for the first time in months. “He talked to me about this,” he continued; his voice was low and a little sad, and Steve got the feeling whatever this was, it didn’t have anything to do with the assassination attempt. “Tony’s been working on some cybernetics for a while now, to get me on my feet again. But working out the kinks was testing his patience, so he rewired the War Machine suit to intercept brain waves. The suit works,” he said, simply. “I can fly and walk and blast bad guys with it, same as usual. Which is fine. I’ll do that, no hesitation. But…” he paused; Steve could tell how much it upset him to speak ill of Tony like this, even if it wasn’t deliberate so much as relaying what the man had actually said. Knowing this, Steve said nothing, and was grateful when the rest of his team had the good graces to allow Rhodey the time to admit it.

            “Tony said that, while he was working on my cybernetics, I should wear the suit full-time,” Rhodey said, still unwilling to look any of them in the eye. “He said he does it all the time.”

            Finally, he glanced up at them, focusing in on Pepper, something deeply apologetic in his eyes.

            “I told him I didn’t want that,” he continued. “What happened to me – this,” he indicated his legs, sitting limply in the chair, “-isn’t something that needs to be fixed. It’s something that happened, and is part of me now. It’s important. And I think that was always his problem, anyway. An overreliance on the armor, an overreliance on booze, an overreliance on-”

            He broke off, sharing a knowing look with Pepper. She watched him, her jaw tightly set, squeezing the sweater around herself. “Us,” she finished for him.

            He gave a slow, unhappy nod.

            Sam looked up at Bucky. “That explains the dropped phone.”

            “Yeah,” said Natasha, glancing at him. “Just what I was thinking.”

            “What?” asked Rhodey.

            Massaging the bridge of his nose, Steve murmured, “That’s so like Tony.”

            “ _What_ is?” asked Pepper.

            “I sent him a burner phone,” Steve explained, “so he could contact me if he ever needed to. It’s identical to this one.” He held up the flip phone, from which he’d played the voicemail earlier. “I should’ve remembered that Tony can’t handle any technology which has been remotely outdated, and so he obviously must’ve plugged it into the suit somehow. So he was calling me, drunk, from inside his suit.”

            A burst of hope spiked in Pepper’s expression. “Well, that’s a good thing! You can, you can trace the phone, right? And if you trace the phone you should be able to trace the suit which, which he should still be in, right? Can’t you?”

            “That’s kind of the point of a burner phone, Pepper,” replied Steve ruefully. “They’re hard to trace on purpose.”

            “But – you can do it, right?” she asked, sounding on the verge of pleading. “You’re superheroes.” She was shaking slightly, and Steve felt Rhodey’s eyes on him as well, silent but not any less desperate. “You have to be able to do it.”

            Steve let out a careful, measured breath, then looked at Natasha. She replied with a shrug. “We can try,” she said.

            A few minutes later, Natasha was set up at Tony’s computer hub, the graphics hanging in a complex tableau in midair.

            “This tech is amazing,” she murmured, her fingers working quickly across the display, a small frown on her face.

            “Good!” said Pepper urgently. “That’s good, right?”

            “Well,” replied Natasha, “yes and no. No because this kind of tech is about a thousand times more complex than that of a burner phone, which means tapping into such a low-tech system could be difficult. Yes,” she continued, “because the complexity means there are a thousand-and-one workarounds for any one issue. So I should be able to make something work, even if it’s rough.”

            It was dark outside by now; not so late that the city was quiet, not that it ever got truly quiet, but late enough that people were mostly safe in their homes, little square lights blinking off along the length of skyscrapers across the city.  Bucky stood along the glass front wall of the Tower, peering down at Grand Central Station below them. Despite the time, people were still feeding in and out of it in steady little lines, like rows of ants.

            When they were sixteen, Steve had dragged Bucky to the Art Galleries in the sixth floor of the Station; there’d been an exhibit of bronzes, which weren’t Steve’s interest or expertise, but which fascinated him nonetheless. The bronze statues were big, strange, and powerful. For someone as small as Steve, as weak as he was then, they must’ve seemed superhuman.

            Bucky had bailed on him early. He’d gone back downstairs to the big terminal below to lean against the big columns and smoke, and watch the people go by. They didn’t look up, most of them, but their ugly looks or their scuffed up shoes or the way they clutched their purses and briefcases told Bucky more than a look ever would. Steve, he had an eye for art; Bucky – he had always had an eye for reading people.

            There was a HYDRA base, Bucky recalled vaguely, buried deep underneath Grand Central. He’d been held there a few years back. To his recollection he had not been sent out on a mission then; he’d been reserve, in case he was needed. Whatever had happened – and Bucky could not remember what it was, no matter how hard he peered down at the magnificent building below – had gone down smoothly. Smooth enough that the Winter Soldier’s skills had not been necessary.

            Steve, seated on the edge of one of the couches, leaned in towards Rhodey. “Do you have any idea where Tony might’ve gone?”

            “No, not really,” Rhodey answered, anxiously leaning forward in his wheelchair. “We checked all the usual places, all the safehouses we know, both his own and the Avengers's too.”

            “Are there any safehouses you don’t know about?” asked Steve.

            Pepper’s voice rang out from beside Natasha the computer. “And how the hell would we know about any safehouses we _don’t know about?_ ”

            Behind Steve, Bucky turned away quickly, hiding a smile.

            “I mean,” Steve began again, patiently, “is there somewhere he would go that you’re not monitoring? Any place he might head off to if he needed to go into hiding, even from you?”

            Rhodey didn’t say anything for a moment. “Well,” he began, slowly, “there is the Rose Hill Protocol.”

            “Rose Hill?” echoed Steve, glancing between Rhodey and Pepper, who had looked up from the computer display to watch Steve, a stricken look on her face. “What’s the Rose Hill Protocol?”

            “It was something he installed after everything that happened with the Mandarin,” said Pepper. She glanced at Natasha, reaching out to squeeze her arm gratefully, then went to join Steve and Rhodey by the couch. “A few years ago, do you remember that?”

            “Right,” said Steve, nodding. “Yeah. When the President got strung up for execution, and you forgot to call the rest of us.”

            “Hey,” replied Rhodey, with an attempt at a smile, “we took care of it before you could’ve got there, anyway.”

            Pepper watched Rhodey with worry in her eyes, then her gaze flicked back to Steve. “The Rose Hill Protocol,” she told him, “came out of the Battle of New York as well. It’s built in to every new suit he makes – it’s designed to recognize if Tony’s incapacitated or otherwise unable to control the armor, and take him to a safe, preset location.”

            “Perfect,” said Steve, sitting up straighter. “Where?”

            Pepper held up her empty hands. “I don’t know,” she said. “He resets it every few weeks.”

            Steve stared at her. “Hold on, back up,” he said, waving his hands, as if he could physically turn back time and hear this again. “So Tony could _die_ in the armor, and it’d take him to some undisclosed location that you don’t even know about?”

            When he looked back at Pepper, he immediately regretted his words. There were tears in her eyes. “No,” she answered, but her voice was quiet. “If he dies, the armor is programmed to keep fighting without him.”

            Something sank into Steve’s stomach.

            Pepper wiped her eyes, sniffling slightly. She gave Steve a tight smile. “And people ask why I wish he would quit the suits. Besides,” she sniffed again, and Sam handed her a tissue, “thank you – besides, Rose Hill is only supposed to activate when he’s incapacitated. He was obviously conscious on that voice message, and you said you didn’t think the – the shooter – got any hits in.”

            “He was stone drunk, Pepper,” said Rhodey, twisting around in his chair. “That’s pretty incapacitated in my book.”

            Pepper took a deep breath, pressing her hands against her face. Steve watched her, his chest feeling sick and hollow.

            Then, from behind them all, there was a resounding _PING_.

            “I got it,” said Natasha.

            Instantly, Pepper was by her side; Steve exchanged glanced with Sam, then followed, allowing space for Rhodey’s chair beside Pepper.

            “It’s not perfect,” added Natasha. “The most I could do was pinpoint the last cell tower it got a signal from, but it goes dark past here.” She pointed to a spot on the map projected before them.

            “Denver, Colorado?” asked Bucky, squinting at the screen from behind them all.

            “Just past Denver,” Natasha corrected. “This was the last signal the phone got, a few hours ago. Wherever he is, I’d bet he’s around there.”

            “Denver…” murmured Pepper, deep in thought. “There’s a ski lodge in the mountains outside Denver,” she said, her heartbeat speeding up. “It belonged to his parents, he hasn’t been there in years – but we checked that property, we checked everything. He’s not there.”

            “Alright,” said Steve, straightening up again, slipping almost unconsciously back into Captain America mode. “Pepper, you and Jim keep monitoring that property, see if he shows up. Get Vision or someone here to keep an eye on you, in case our assassin comes back. The four of us will head out towards these coordinates, sweep the area and see if we can’t find anything. Buck, you know HYDRA best, does any of this look familiar to – Buck-”

            Steve turned around to find Bucky shaking, a bone-deep tremble; his spine curved and he stumbled forwards into Steve, who caught him. “Buck!” he said again, fear entering his voice. Slowly, he dropped to one knee, lowering Bucky to a half-kneel, half falling into Steve’s body. “Bucky, look at me! What’s happening!”

            Bucky looked up at Steve, but his eyes were filmy and far away. “Oh, God,” uttered Steve, as blood vessels broke in the whites of Bucky’s eyes, turning them a pale pink and then a violent red. “Bucky,” whimpered Steve, his heart pounding, fear gripping his insides. “No – no, no, don’t do this to me pal, come on-”

            Steve was vaguely aware of the voices of the others, of panicking, desperate repetitions of the same question he had, _What the hell is going on_ , but he couldn’t hear them, couldn’t focus on anything except his best friend, who seemed to be slowly being killed by some internal force Steve could not see, and therefore could not fight. “No, no, no,” breathed Steve, as he fell back to sit on the floor, Bucky splayed limply across his legs, his face still in Steve’s hands. _This is not happening here_ , thought Steve wildly, as Bucky let out the faintest gurgling sound, and the corners of his mouth began to foam, _Not after everything we went through, not after everything I did to get you back. You don’t die here, Buck. You don’t_ get _to die here._

“He’s seizing,” said Sam, his voice piercing through the static. Strong hands tried to pry Bucky away from Steve, but he held on tightly. “Steve,” Sam’s voice again, “you need to let him go and move away right now, he’s having a seizure and you could hurt him more if you don’t let him go-”

            Unable to breathe, Steve whipped his hands away from Bucky as fast as if he’d been burned; Sam gently took Bucky. “Move,” he said, his eyes focused on Bucky as he ripped open the collar of the man’s suit, “everybody move, give him space. Natasha, I need a pillow for his head, pillow for his head-”

            Instantly Natasha had a pillow from one of the couches, which she gently slipped under his head as Sam turned Bucky onto his side, into the recovery position.

            “Stay calm, it’s okay,” repeated Sam, finding Bucky’s wrist to take his pulse. “Hey. Look at me. It’s okay.”

            It took Steve a second to realize Sam was talking to him. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from Bucky’s face, his gaping open mouth, struggling to take in a breath like a fish out of water.

            “Steve,” said Sam. “He needs you in control right now, come on. Focus.”

            Steve sat there, dumbstruck and helpless, as Bucky seized violently on the floor, his face frozen rigid and ugly like a rigor mortis, his red eyes rolling back into his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh no! Bucky!!! See y'all next week to find out if he's ok...
> 
> Some credit due to this post: http://knightinironarmor.tumblr.com/post/146078495555/knightinironarmor-does-anybody-remember-that


	8. Chapter 8

            Bucky’s seizure lasted one minute and forty-eight seconds, and it was the longest two minutes of Steve’s life, and that included that time he had to crawl through the mud across No Man’s Land in cover of darkness to infiltrate a HYDRA compound, and the two minutes after he lost Bucky on that train in the Alps, and those a hundred-and-something seconds after he dropped the shield on the helicarrier in D.C., when blood trickled down his face and into his vision, and he had figured, if this was the end, that was okay.

            This, on the other hand – nothing about this was okay.

            “Oh my God,” came Pepper’s panicked voice, hovering over the scene, “oh my God, does he need a hospital? Should I call 911? I already called 911, should I have not called them? Oh my God,” she breathed, her hands at her head, “the Winter Soldier just had a heart attack in my living room-”

            “He didn’t have a heart attack,” said Sam, still taking Bucky’s pulse. “He had a seizure. Steve,” said Sam, frowning, “what’s your resting heart rate?”

            From his spot on the floor, Steve stared at Bucky, then his eyes flickered up to Sam. “Twenty – twenty-eight,” he answered.

            Sam nodded, dropping Bucky’s wrist. “You ever seen this happen to him?” he asked.

            Still in shock, Steve shook his head.

            “He should be okay,” added Sam, taking a deep breath and sitting back on his legs. “Ideally he should be conscious by now, but we’ll give him a couple minutes.”

            On her knees before the soft pillow she’d placed to support Bucky’s neck, Natasha leaned in urgently. She kept one hand protectively on the side of Bucky’s head. “What was that?” she demanded, her voice low and level. “What just happened?”

            “I don’t know,” answered Sam, honestly. “I was hoping you’d be able to explain it.” He nodded at Bucky’s head and added, “Can you check his eyes for me?”

            Natasha leaned over Bucky and gently pulled on his eyelids, exposing the whites of his eyes. While still pink, they were obviously healing from the ugly, irritated red of a few minutes ago.

            “Okay,” said Sam, gently putting his hands on Bucky’s side. “Okay, Steve, man, listen to me.” Steve looked up at Sam wildly, having obvious trouble concentrating on his face. “Listen,” Sam repeated, fixing his eyes on Steve’s. “If he’s got one-tenth of the regeneration abilities you do, he’ll be a hundred percent fine. Nothing to worry about.”

            The sound of a wailing siren rushing through the streets floated into the room, just audible through the poorly-covered window. Rhodey looked around, then back at Steve and Sam. “I don’t think you need us right now,” he said, with some unease. “Pepper, why don’t we head downstairs and deal with the paramedics?”

            “He’s okay, though?” asked Pepper again, as Rhodey wheeled past her. She glanced uncertainly between Sam, Steve, and Natasha, searching each one of their faces for an answer. “Like – the Winter Soldier isn’t going to die right here in the Stark Towers Penthouse, right?”

            “Well,” said Natasha, giving Pepper a slight cock of his head, “this is the Avengers Tower now, actually.”

            “Sam just said he’ll be fine, Pep,” murmured Rhodey. “C’mon. Let’s go.”

            Stumbling slightly in shock, Pepper followed Rhodey towards the elevator. “What are we going to tell the paramedics?” she asked, sounding frightened.

            They got into the elevator. “You could push my chair over, and say you panicked,” offered Rhodey, and that was the last thing they heard before the elevator doors closed.

            The tarp taped over the broken pane of glass flapped violently in the wind; the wind howled through the small corner opening like a long owl’s hoot, and Natasha still held Bucky’s head in her hands.

            “Steve,” said Sam, getting up on one knee. “Help me get him to the couch.”

            Finally, Steve managed to pull himself up from where he had fell, shocked, on the floor. He took one side of Bucky’s body, and Sam took the other; Natasha held him by the head, supporting his neck. Gingerly, they placed him on the wide white couch they’d been sitting on earlier, from which Natasha had taken the pillow.

            The three of them – Sam, Steve, and Natasha – all stared at him for a moment. When Steve glanced up, he met Sam’s gaze, but not Natasha’s. She watched Bucky with a hard, blank expression on her face. Unreadable, as always. Steve had come to understand this expression meant Natasha was not allowing herself her feelings, refused to let it touch her, whatever it was. In that moment, Steve vaguely wished he could do the same.

            “Okay,” said Sam, his hands at his hips, looking around at his teammates seriously. “Would someone like to explain to me why a perfectly healthy super-soldier almost just ate it in the most random way possible?”

            Steve wanted to answer, but he had nothing. Holding up his hands to show how empty they were, he said, “You’re the one with medical training.”

            “Oh, right, sure,” answered Sam heatedly. “I got six weeks of EMT training and field rescue, Steve, I’m not exactly a medical professional-”

            “Something about Denver,” said Natasha, quietly.

            Both Steve and Sam’s gazes snapped over to her. “What?” asked Sam.

            “He recognized something,” she continued, finally looking up at the two of them. She had a faraway look in her eyes, something so foreign and strange on her face that Steve almost didn’t recognize it at first. Then, slowly, it dawned on him.

            Natasha was afraid.

            “He recognized something,” she repeated, her eye fluttering back down to watch Bucky, her arms tightly folded across her chest. “And when you asked him about it, Steve – it must’ve triggered something.”

            Steve frowned at her. “You think this is more conditioning,” he said.

            “It’s different from the trigger words,” she added, eyes still fixed on Bucky. “This is about him knowing something. Something so secret, they don’t care if it kills him, as long as he can’t tell anyone.”

            “That can’t be right,” said Sam, shaking his head in denial. “He was their best weapon, they wouldn’t waste him on some intel.”

            Steve gave a stiff, jerky half-shrug. “Depends on the intel.”

            “Okay,” answered Sam, a crease deep on his brow. “But back in Berlin, he told us about Siberia no problem. That’s gotta be the biggest can of beans he had to spill, right? What could be so damn top-secret important that they’d self-destruct the damn Winter Soldier?”

            Neither Steve nor Natasha had an answer. “I don’t know,” she said finally, tearing her gaze away from Bucky, to glance up at Sam. “But whatever it is, can’t be good.”

            A few minutes later, when Bucky still had not awoken, they settled in to look after him until he did. Steve sat with Bucky’s head resting on a pillow in his lap, keeping one hand pressing gently upwards on Bucky’s chin to keep his airways unobstructed. Natasha curled up by Bucky’s feet, and Sam took a seat across from them.

            “You think it has something to do with our HYDRA assassin?” asked Sam, his voice low.

            Natasha, her legs tucked beneath her, gave an obvious shrug. “Odds are pretty slim it’s not.” To Steve, across Bucky’s prone body, Natasha asked, “ _Could_ it be another Winter Soldier?”

            “Wouldn’t make sense,” answered Sam, before Steve even looked up. “If the ones Zemo killed were their best, why would they bother making any others? Especially within the U.S.”

            “True,” replied Natasha.

            A gust of wind blew glass across the tiled floor by the shattered pane, and Steve stared absently out the glass walls. His hand rested, gently, on the crown of Bucky’s head.

            Across from them, Sam leaned back in his seat, his eyes searching around the Penthouse as if for some clue to explain everything that had just happened. “What exactly got said?” he asked, returning his gaze to Natasha. “Maybe we accidentally trigger word’d him with a, I don’t know, a failsafe or something.”

            Natasha shook her head. “This is complex conditioning,” she answered. “Physiological, not psychological. It’s a lot harder to induce an actual seizure than simple compliance. My bet is this kind of conditioning wasn’t around when they were first programming the trigger words into him. Besides,” she added, “you’d want your failsafe to be even harder to guess than the trigger words themselves, right? And there are ten trigger words, in a specific order, in Russian. Somehow I doubt _anything_ that’s been said in this room has any reactive hold over him.”

            Steve turned his head abruptly, without quite looking up to meet Natasha’s eye. “Something did,” he said.

            “Yeah, but I don’t think it was anything we said,” responded Natasha. She slid down her seat a little more, curling up; she placed one hand on Bucky’s ankle, but it was unclear if it was for his sake, or for hers. “The trigger was internal, not external. Designed to incapacitate him, so he won’t be able to talk about whatever it is they were protecting.”

            Steve still held Bucky’s face in his hands. “So when I asked him about the coordinates…”

            Natasha nodded at him. “It triggered the seizure, so he couldn’t reply.”

            “Okay,” said Sam, nodding. There was some excitement in the way he leaned forward, anxiety burning off into anticipation. “So we know something’s there. We go out there, and he can show us what’s up. Doesn’t have to say anything out loud.”

            Her gaze heavy, Natasha swept around to look at him. “It’s not that simple, Sam.” Nearby, the remaining lights of an office building blinked, then shut off. The artificial lights of the Penthouse threw their faces into deep relief. Even still, Steve thought, glancing down at his friend’s face, sleep was becoming to the Winter Soldier. In unconsciousness, the slack jaw and the heavy-set eyes returned to that of someone Steve recognized, pure enough to bring back memories of decades ago. “If he can’t even _think_ about speaking it aloud without this happening,” Natasha continued, gesturing at Bucky’s prone body, “then actually showing it to us could kill him. This is serious conditioning.”

            “How ‘bout we wake him up,” Sam proposed, “and use the trigger words, and ask the Winter Soldier what he knows?”

            “Then he might be forced to tell us,” admitted Natasha, “but the conflicting conditioning would, again, kill him.”

            “Fine,” said Sam, growing more and more agitated, “then let’s just dump him back at base and head to the coordinates. Now we know something’s there, we got a lead.”

            “This is HYDRA we’re talking about, Sam,” Natasha replied flatly. “And if they’re willing to bury their best soldier for this, it’s not going to be easy to find. Not to mention that we’re on a time limit here – we came here to find Tony, and every second he’s not found is a second he’s still in danger.”

            “Oh, bullshit – Tony’s gonna turn up fine in two months, drinking margaritas in Fiji or something, just like last time.”

            Impatiently, Natasha began, “Sam, that is not at all what happened last time-”

            “We have to let him go,” said Steve.

            Natasha and Sam looked up at him. “We have to what?”

            Steve regarded Bucky’s face with an odd sense of detachment, as if he wasn’t even quite sure what he meant, or else these were words someone else was saying to him, something that he was struggling to understand. Steve had been backed into corners before, and found no way out thus had to make his own; but this wasn’t like that. He knew Bucky’s head – Bucky, not the Winter Soldier, but the man he had slowly been coming back to – as well as he knew his own. If Bucky could not say it aloud, then Steve would have to say it for him.

            He looked up at Sam. “Bucky has to go,” he said. “He has to think we’re not following him, and he has to really believe it. Once he’s on his own, he’ll find Tony.”

            Cautiously, Sam glanced at Natasha, as if asking for a hand. “Steve,” he began, “we don’t even really know for sure how Tony is involved here.”

            “The last location we have on record for Tony is close enough to wherever this place is that it triggered Bucky,” said Steve, with a dust of impatience around the edges of his tone. “That seems clear enough to me. And it’s the best lead we have right now.”

            Once again, Sam looked at Natasha. Her expression was tight and withdrawn, one hand tightly grasping Bucky’s leg, holding onto him tightly.

            “Come on,” said Sam, in disbelief. “You’re not seriously considering this, are you? Natasha?”

            “It does make sense,” she muttered, but she still seemed troubled.

            Aiming to take full advantage of that, Sam leaned forward and said, “Come _on_. How do we even know he’ll go looking for it? And how do we know this conditioning won’t just straight-up kill him when he does? What happens when he dies, alone, somewhere in the middle of the mountains, and we can’t even find his goddamn body?”

            Quietly, Steve said, “That already happened to him.”

            Sam’s gaze snapped back to Steve and his expression melted away, into an awful, guilty horror. Steve watched Sam wearily.

            “He survived it last time,” continued Steve, just as lowly. “If I were you, I’d give him the benefit of the doubt.”

            Sam wanted to protest, but he also didn’t want to injure Steve any more than life had already done. With a loud, frustrated breath, he asked, “Why does it feel like I’m the only one here trying to look out for the kid?”

            “Because he’s not a kid,” answered Natasha; she finally straightened up in her seat on the couch, releasing her hold on Bucky. “He’s the Winter Soldier. If anyone can pull this off, it’s him.”

            “Yeah, sure,” returned Sam bitterly, “and who better to track him than the team who couldn’t find a trace of him for _two damn years_?”

            In Steve’s lap, Bucky stirred. Immediately Steve’s heart skipped a beat, then his pulse quickened. “Hey,” he said, taking his hands away from Bucky’s head. “Hey, Buck.”

            Natasha gave Sam a murderous look, then pressed one finger to her lips to indicate to him a silent _shhh_. Again, Bucky stirred; his eyes slipped slightly open, and he blinked.

            Then, without warning, his body immediately tensed, and his single elbow jutted upwards towards Steve’s nose – Steve caught it, holding him down, and said, “Woah, hey! Bucky, hold on!” Before Bucky could roll off the couch, Natasha clamped her hands down on his ankles once more, holding him tight; he kicked up with his knees, knocking her in the face, then used the momentum to tumble up over her and off the couch in one solid movement, tearing her down with him. “Bucky!” shouted Steve, as he pinned Natasha to the floor, his hand caught around her throat.

            Natasha scrabbled at his hands with her fingernails, but otherwise did not resist. “J-James,” she hissed, barely able to breathe. “F- _focus_ -”

            Bucky’s eyes, bloodshot and piercing, stared at her for one moment, a frown on his brow.

            And then he let her go. He straightened up, staggering backwards, his right arm finding, once again, the artificial stump of his missing left.

            By then, both Sam and Steve were on their feet.

            “Buck,” repeated Steve, behind his friend. “It’s just us.”

            “Come on, kid,” barked Sam. “Don’t tell me you forgot us that easy.”

            For one moment, nothing happened.

            Then he moved forward again, and Steve prepared to attack, even without his shield – but then Bucky stopped before Natasha, and he held out a hand.

            Natasha hesitated, looking up at him. “ _U_ _chitelnitsa_?” she asked.

            Even behind him, Steve could tell that Bucky shook his head. “No,” he said, in English. “Just me.”

            She took his hand, and he helped her to his feet. “Sorry,” he said, turning back to face Steve and Sam. He still held on to Natasha’s hand, and she returned the pressure, holding on tightly to him. Something seemed profoundly different than just half an hour ago – the playfulness and the snarky pleasure had evaporated, and what was left was denser, more refined. Letting go of Natasha’s hand – she took half a second to let go as well, and take her hand away – he reached up, running his hand through his shoulder-length hair, getting it out of his eyes. Steve said nothing, watching him with bated breath.

            “What happened?” asked Bucky.

            Steve didn’t answer this right away, not sure how to phrase it without repeating the incident. Fortunately, Natasha took this one for the team. “You passed out,” she said. “Scared Steve real bad for a second there.”

            Bucky looked at him, and Steve gave him a weak smile. “It’s true,” he added. “You sure you’re okay? You had a seizure.”

            A gentle ghost of realization broke in Bucky’s eyes. He chanced a short glance at the computer station, where coordinates still blinked on a map, then looked back at Steve and set his jaw.

            Bucky closed his eyes tightly for a moment. He shook his head. “Buck…” began Steve, and he reached out. Bucky took a step away from him, shook his head again – this time more urgently, not to indicate no so much as to dislodge something that had taken root in his brain – and then he opened his eyes.

            They were bloodshot, but he didn’t look like he was going to lapse into another seizure, at any rate. On the contrary, he managed to flash Steve and Sam a tight little smile. “Talking about the Alps,” he said, “huh?”

            At first Steve was unsure what this meant, but then Natasha jumped in. “Yes,” she said, something brightening on her face as she apparently understood something. “The mountains. The mountains where you were captured.”

            Steve made a face. “What are you-?”

            “Where you were captured,” repeated Natasha, giving Steve a very pointed look, “and taken to a _secret HYDRA base_. Right?”

            “Right,” said Bucky, nodding swiftly. “Those mountains.”

            It dawned on Steve a second after Sam, who said, “Ah, right. _Those_ mountains.”

            Although Bucky could not talk about the HYDRA base in the Rockies, it still might be possible to tread very carefully around the topic, as long as Bucky could fool his brain into thinking about they were discussing something else entirely. Knowing how deep conditioning ran, and how hard they had been trying for so long just to knock those trigger words out of his head, Steve was impressed, but cautious.

            “Can you – talk about it?” asked Steve. “Do you remember much about it? Its location, what they did there, anything?”

            Before Steve was even finished speaking, Bucky was shaking his head. “No,” he sighed. “I don’t know what they did there,” then he added, “other than what they did to me, I guess. But anyway,” he added, with a very distinct look at Steve, “I don’t think I could talk about it. Too…painful.”

            “That’s okay,” said Steve immediately, nodding his head. “That’s fine.”

            “You think you could find it again, if you went back?”

            Steve shot Sam a warning look; Bucky’s chest was beginning to rise and fall more quickly, as if pending an oncoming panic attack.

            But then Sam continued, “Even if you didn’t take us with you. You think if you got back to Germany or Russia or wherever-the-fuck it was, you could find that HYDRA base again? On your own?”

            Bucky stared at Sam. His breathing slowed. “It was Austria,” he said, with an expression directed at Sam which was half gratitude, half relief. “Not Germany.”

            Just then, the elevator let out a little _ding_ , and the doors opened to reveal Pepper and Rhodey again. Natasha slipped her hand into her pocket, and took out her phone. “Oh my God,” gasped Pepper, entering the Penthouse with Rhodey, “thank God, he’s not dead.”

            “You take care of everything downstairs?” asked Steve.

            Rhodey nodded. “You guys are still clean. No one knows you’re here.” He looked up at Bucky, who blinked a few times, as if to get something out of his eyes, then scrubbed at his face with his hand. “You okay?” he called.

            At first Bucky said nothing, his hand still covering his face. Then he looked up, and gave another tight smile. “I’ll make it,” he answered.

            The computer display, which had been left up untouched since Bucky fell, let out another loud _PING_. Immediately they all looked around to Natasha, who gave a short frown of confusion, then returned to her place before the computers. Pepper reached out and grabbed a hold of Rhodey’s shirt, hardly daring to breathe.

            “We got another location,” said Natasha.

            “Where?” asked Pepper, breathless.

            Natasha squinted at the screen. “It looks like…Malibu?”

            “Malibu?” echoed Rhodey, apparently unconvinced.

            But Pepper threw herself forward, towards Natasha, leaning in to see the projected display for herself. “He still owns the property where the house used to be,” she said, her eyes wide. “Maybe he – maybe he built himself a safe house, one he didn’t tell me about. That – that sounds like him.”

            “Yeah, it does,” murmured Natasha. She went through several security footage images of the beautiful Californian cliff side, with the skeleton of Tony’s mansion still clinging onto the bluffs. Steve could tell they were live feeds because of the fading light, the dusk that still clung to the very edges of the Pacific horizon. “I don’t see anything,” said Natasha reasonably, “but that would be the point, wouldn’t it?”

            “Oh my God,” sighed Pepper again, closing her eyes. She pressed one hand to her chest, and reached out to put the other on Natasha’s arm. “Oh my God, thank you,” she said. She leaned her head against Natasha’s shoulder, and Natasha took the touch, even going so far as leaning her own head against Pepper’s soothingly. “I feel like I can breathe again for the first time in twenty-four hours.”

            “Then we’ll start there,” said Steve. “Buck,” he continued, turning to the other man, who stared back at him with a lost-looking frown on his face, a distinctly not-Bucky expression which made Steve’s stomach churn, “I think you should sit this one out. With the arm, and now this – and then there’s the fact that you’re still susceptible to the words.”

            Bucky stared at him, jaw working. “I told you, I can work intel-”

            “Steve was right before,” called Natasha, gently pulling herself away from Pepper. “I can take care of that. Right now you need to rest. Don’t fight me on this,” she added, with a sly smile. “I can take you.”

            He almost returned that smile. Almost. “We both know that’s not true, _Vdova_.”

            “Seriously, man,” said Sam. He loped forward casually, breaking the odd surface tension they’d somehow developed around Bucky, a sort of invisible magnetic barrier, each of them equidistant away from him in a different direction. Without hesitation, Sam slung an arm around Bucky’s shoulders, then guided him slowly towards the elevator. “After this – we’ll all take a break. Go abroad. Do a big Europe tour, hunt down all those secret HYDRA bases y’all never got to – including that secret one in the mountains.”

            Steve’s heartbeat seemed slow slightly, as if his blood were syrup, a thick sludge weighing down his veins. But Bucky did not fall, or faint, or start to seize. Instead, he gave Sam a small smile. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, one of these days we gotta do that.”

            “You should take the chopper back to the Quinjet,” said Steve, crossing the room to join them at the elevator. He clapped a hand on Bucky’s arm. “Just head back to home base. Make sure everyone else is doing okay. You brought your phone, right?” Bucky nodded, patting one of his pockets. “Okay. We’ll update you soon.”

            Sam hit the elevator button, but just as it arrived with a slight _ding_ , Rhodey said shortly, “Pepper, would you mind showing our new friend up to the helipad?”

            Pepper blinked, but then her well-manicured professional reflexes kicked in. “I – yes,” she said, crossing the room. “If you’d – of course I can.”

            She smiled at Bucky, and Bucky managed to smile back – a real smile, something warm, something Steve could recognize. Steve felt a low wave of relief in the pit of his stomach. Pepper and Bucky got onto the elevator, and Steve made as if to follow, but Rhodey held out a hand, waist height on Steve, who stopped, looking down at him.

            “Hold on,” said Rhodey. “I want to talk to you.”

            Steve managed to glance up at Bucky before the elevator doors closed; Bucky gave him a short nod, and then he disappeared from view. Neither Steve nor Rhodey moved for a moment.

            Then Rhodey wheeled his chair around to raise his eyebrow at all three of them.

            “I don’t know why you just did that to Pepper,” he said plainly. Rhodey was never one to take his time saying what could be said directly. “But it was mean.”

            From the computer display, Natasha asked, “Did what to Pepper?”

            “You know,” he replied stubbornly. He wheeled past Steve and Sam, back to the display where Natasha stood. “I guarantee you that woman’s getting on a plane to Malibu tonight, but of _course_ Tony’s not gonna be there,” he continued, scathingly. “He broadcasted that address to everybody in the nation – it’s a tourist hotspot now. A monument.”

            “Just the way he likes it,” remarked Natasha, with distaste.

            “Yeah, you know what, that is the way he likes it,” replied Rhodey, glaring at her. “And sure it’s a little bigheaded, but that man’s my best friend in the world, and like it or not he’s a superhero, and I don’t appreciate you coming all the way out here to take advantage of my good faith to straight-up lie to me.”

            “Hold on,” said Steve, joining Natasha and Rhodey by the computer. “It’s not that simple.”

            “Yeah, well, then you damn well better start explaining right now, because from this angle it _looks_ pretty damn simple.”

            Carefully, Sam said, “That’s because you can’t see the whole picture from where you’re standing, Jim.”

            Rhodey, Natasha, and Steve glanced up at Sam.

            He paused. “Sitting,” he corrected. “From where you’re sitting. Anyway – what I mean is, don’t think you can read us that easy, Colonel. You don’t got all the puzzle pieces just yet.”

            “Okay, fine,” said Rhodey, throwing his hands up in the air. “Care to share all your pieces with the _rest_ of the team?”

            At this, Sam actually let out a stinging laugh. “Oh, so now we’re on the same team again all of the sudden-?”

            “Alright, alright, Sam, come on,” said Steve, speaking over Sam’s growing protests. He gave him a hard look, then said to Rhodey, “It’s…a complicated situation. So – yes, the California result may have been false-”

            Just then, with a little _ding_ that was growing old fast, the elevator returned, and so did Pepper. “Alright,” she said, striding into the Penthouse with more confidence than she had shown all night, “I can get you a private jetliner at JFK, but Tony has a garage that opens up under the Bay if-”

            “Pepper,” said Natasha, interrupting her suddenly. She frowned at the woman, then glanced out the glass walls in front of them, peering up at the skies. “Did Barnes take off?”

            “What?” Pepper blinked at her, confused. Pointing behind her, back at the elevator, she began, “He said he had to do a few safety checks first – it was cold up there-”

            “But did you _see him_ take off?” repeated Natasha intently, watching Pepper.

            Pepper hesitated – then shook her head.

            Natasha let out a Russian oath under her breath, then sprinted to the stairwell, Steve and Sam right behind her.

            It was hardly a few moments later that Pepper reached the roof with Rhodey in the elevator, and they spilled out to see the sleek black matte helicopter sitting there untouched, doors all closed, while Bucky was nowhere to be seen.

            Natasha circled around the helicopter, peering down over the roof’s ledges to search the nighttime air for Bucky, although she couldn’t for the life of her figure out where he had gone, or how he had disappeared. She’d had to kick down the door to the stairwell, which had been chained from the outside, and they would’ve noticed the elevator come down. It looked like, Natasha thought, Bucky had pulled a goddamn Captain America, and had thrown himself off the top of a high building with no plan at all, choosing instead to figure out how to survive a thousand-foot drop about halfway through the freefall.

            Her hair whipped about her face in the cold air, and the streets were filled with bright white and red lights. The distant sounds of horns honking floated up and past her towards the night sky.

            Glancing back at the helicopter, she caught Sam’s eye as he stood beside Cap at the unopened door of the chopper. Despite her pounding frustration, Sam gave her a grin, and then he gave an over-exaggerated shrug.

            “Kid’s good!” he shouted, over the howl of the icy, whipping wind.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote the second half of this chapter whilst listening to this music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hReJBDbb7Y
> 
> It rly elevates the mood if you want to listen too :)

            “Okay, but seriously,” said Sam, gratefully accepting a mug of coffee from Pepper, “you had to see this one coming.”

             Only Steve had declined coffee, standing before a huge map Natasha had projected from the computer display, examining a live satellite feed of the area surrounding Tony’s coordinates in Colorado. Natasha watched him, sipping from her own mug.

            “Most accomplished assassin in the history of the world,” Sam continued, shaking his head, “and your plan was to just – let him go?”

            “What were we supposed to do, Sam?” asked Natasha, glancing at him. “Getting that intel from him any other way could’ve killed him.”

            “Of course he wasn’t about to take the Quinjet,” murmured Steve, frowning at the map. “He knows it’s got a trace in it. Same with the helicopter, I bet.”

            Natasha looked at Pepper and Rhodey for confirmation; Pepper looked slightly guilty, but Rhodey didn’t. “’Course it does,” shrugged Rhodey. “Most of Tony’s tech does.”

            “Except for the suits,” said Steve, finally glancing back and away from the map. At Rhodey’s look, he held up his hands. “That’s not a judgment, it’s a question. Does Tony have tracers in the armor?”

            “In some of them,” answered Pepper. “But that sort of thing can usually be hijacked, so most of them don’t have anything traceable.”

            “And you tried to track the suit he was wearing, right?”

            “I don’t know which suit he was wearing,” said Pepper.

            Natasha glanced up at her; although Steve claimed not to be judging, Natasha apparently had no qualms about that, one eyebrow raised skeptically.

            “I mean,” added Pepper, almost indignantly, in response to Natasha’s gaze, “yes, I checked every trace I have on his suits, and all of them are here. But I don’t know what armor he was wearing. It could’ve been new, he’s been on his own for a while and he builds a new suit every twenty minutes when left to his own devices.”

            Steve watched her for a second, then turned back to the map.

            “And none of you have a trace on Barnes?” asked Rhodey doubtfully. “You never thought it might be a good idea to put some kind of tracker on him, in case he bailed on you?”

            There was a short, tense pause, as Sam looked at the back of Steve’s head, and Steve refused to turn around. Yes, they had talked about doing this exact thing; there had been an angry argument outside the compound, in the dense Californian redwoods, where Bucky presumably hadn’t been able to hear them. Sam had insisted that he hadn’t spent two years chasing after ghosts just to potentially lose Bucky once again if something went awry. Stubbornly, Steve had refused to plant a secret trace on Bucky. “He’s my friend,” he’d said, which was the defense Steve used so often it was already more than a little stale. “He needs to know I trust him.”

            Before Sam could squeal on Steve, though, Natasha spoke.

            “I did,” she said, tapping something on her phone. Both Sam and Steve looked at her, Steve’s gaze snapping around, part betrayal, part relief. Glancing up at him, she explained, “Subdermal implant while he was sleeping off the…” she didn’t glance at Pepper and Rhodey, but Steve could tell she didn’t want them to know they’d been triggering Bucky, “the karaoke session,” she said, which was as good a euphemism as any, “a few weeks ago.”

            “Perfect,” said Pepper, her face lighting up hopefully, “then you can follow him, right?”

            “Not so fast,” replied Natasha, grimacing at her phone. “He must’ve noticed it a while ago.” She held her phone up, revealing a blinking red dot on, if Steve squinted, what appearedto be a different continent. “It says he’s been in Malawi for two weeks now.”

            Steve said nothing, only watched her. Sam let out a low whistle. “Well,” he added, matter-of-factly. “The guy _is_ a professional.”

            “Hold on, back up,” said Rhodey, shaking his head. Gesturing to the map projected in huge scale before them, he pointed out, “I don’t understand why you’re not already there. You have the damn coordinates, what are you waiting for? Hell, get me my War Machine suit and I’ll be the first to go.”

            “I don’t want to follow Bucky too closely,” murmured Steve, still frowning at the satellite images. “We can’t risk triggering something that might hurt him.”

            “Can’t _risk_ -” Rhodey cut himself off in frustration, then let out an exasperated sigh. “Why does this suddenly feel like a rescue mission for Barnes, not Tony?”

            “Listen, Jim,” said Sam, “I don’t know if you haven’t been paying attention, but pretty much everything Steve’s done for the past three years has been a rescue mission for that dude.”

            “So,” began Pepper, her voice slightly unsteady. She held her coffee cup close to her mouth, her face warm and pink with the steam rising off of it. “If Barnes finds Tony-” she caught Steve’s eye, and amended, “ _When_ he finds Tony…he’s not going to hurt him, right?” She peered back at Steve worriedly, serious concern in her eyes. “I don’t have to worry about two different assassins going after him, right?”

            “Bucky’s on our side,” said Steve firmly, as if to settle that discussion. “He came out here to help Tony, same as the rest of us. He’s not about to attack him.”

            Rhodey shook his head, exhaling a long breath. “You trust the guy an awful lot, for everything he did.”

            Even Sam was starting to get sick of this broken-record talk about Bucky’s past, over and over again – and he’d been the one dragging it up for months back when they first went into hiding. Natasha set aside her coffee and twisted around, as if to reply to this, but Steve spoke first.

            “I’m listening to you, Jim, and believe me, I understand where you’re coming from,” said Steve, but his posture and the look on his face made this sound more or less hollow, “but _you_ aren’t listening to _me_.” He watched Rhodey for a moment, something hyper-focused and bristling with energy about his gaze, a true super-soldier look which he did not often wear. “Imagine if Tony had come out of that cave in Afghanistan a killer,” he said, bluntly. “Imagine they’d kept him in there and done terrible things to him until he built them their weapons, and he did whatever they told him to because they broke him. Imagine that happening, and think about how powerless you were to do any God-damned thing to save him, and then tell me again how I should give up on my best friend.”

            There was a harsh, loaded silence.

            Then Rhodey wrenched his gaze away from Steve, giving a little shake of his head. He pulled slightly backwards in his wheelchair, then headed for the elevator. “I’m done waiting,” he said. “I’m gonna go suit up. When I get back, you guys better be ready to go. If not,” he said, glancing back to meet Steve’s gaze as the elevator doors opened, “I’m taking off without you.”

            He wheeled himself into the elevator, and the doors closed behind him.

            Steve, Nat, and Sam exchanged glances.

            Sam gave a pointed shrug.

            “Let’s do this,” he said.

\----

            It took Bucky twenty minutes longer than it should have, and almost all of the remaining explosives he’d hidden in his belt – the only weapons he had not surrendered to Pepper’s demands – to finally force his way into the HYDRA base below Grand Central Station. Though he knew the universal codes for HYDRA safehouses, this base had higher security than that. A year ago he would’ve torn the door off its hinges with his cybernetic arm, punched straight through the metal and peeled it back from the inside out. But he no longer had his steel arm, and he had to rethink the way he worked.

            Inside, it looked abandoned. Bucky didn’t move for a moment, surveying the place – its bare structure, broken glass on the floor, laboratory-like and evil-looking – and wondered how long it had been since anyone besides the rats had inhabited the place. It had not been so long since he was there himself, so it couldn’t have been too many years. Since the Battle of New York, maybe? But somehow Bucky found it hard to believe that there had been an active HYDRA base a stone’s throw away from Stark Tower, and Iron Man hadn’t known about it. Maybe they’d left when Stark had taken over the building above them.

            Then again, HYDRA had operated covertly within the U.S. government for decades. And though Tony Stark might be a superhero, Bucky doubted he was more meticulously observant than the best of S.H.I.E.L.D. had been. If he had been, Bucky figured, the whole throwdown in Siberia would’ve never come to pass. All feelings aside, it shouldn’t have been that hard to read the political terrain in 1991, and come to the conclusion that something more than a car crash – a _car_ crash, when the driver was the world’s greatest inventor, the Twentieth Century’s master of technology – had killed Howard and Maria Stark.

            Bucky did not resent Tony for wanting to kill him, not really, but he did have a little impatience with the sheer unprofessionalism of it all. Perhaps this was because Bucky had been a soldier, and Tony, from what Bucky had heard, had never been to war. Never seen how easy it was to kill a man by a bullet to the back of his head, so he never learned to read the signs, to imagine how anyone can become capable of anything, really, so long as the circumstances were right. Steve knew this, and more so than the friendship they shared, Bucky thought this was why he was so deeply defensive of him: unlike Tony, who now hated weaponry so powerfully they weren’t even allowed in his building, Steve understood it was not the gun which was evil so much as the man who had fired it. And Bucky may have been the gun, but it was HYDRA who pulled the trigger.

            This didn’t mean the gun wasn’t dangerous, thought Bucky, sifting through the empty compound bitterly, and sometimes destroying the weapon was necessary, that it may never be used again. It was here, Bucky thought, that Natasha was wrong about his last fight with Tony. It wasn’t that Steve’s presence had prevented Bucky from killing Tony. That wasn’t it at all.

            Bucky tried not to think about this as he kicked down a number of doors, searching for the inevitable vehicle of some sort, something that would take him far away out of New York. It had to be small, and fast, but unobtrusive; something that could slip under the radar, even if that meant ditching it entirely as he entered the mountains. The Winter Soldier was built for the cold, anyhow, not the stifling heat of D.C. in August, which had been so heavy and oppressive that he had thought, clinically, incidentally, that it would kill him if he did not remove that mask;  but he had been ordered not to touch it, so he had left it alone.

            The cooling unit in the arm had busted early on during that mission, when a bare metal hand caught a vibranium shield, sending a spasm up the internal tech that grated in the elbow joint, jamming the delicate connections. Work had been done, hastily, to fix the arm, but they had focused mostly on keeping it in working condition so that their soldier may return to his war. No time for fixing a cooling unit – as long as the arm would function, the comfort of the body attached to it meant very little.

            When S.H.I.E.L.D. fell and Bucky walked away, he figured he would live with it. As penance, maybe, or otherwise just a mild inconvenience in the larger scheme of things. So what if he could hardly touch his own bare skin with the burning metal of his left arm – there were worse things in the world.

            Tony had solved that problem, with a poorly aimed blast from his armor. Bucky did not miss the arm, although he did have a somewhat reluctant sense that it would be useful to be able to hold things with two hands again.

            A surge of triumph rose in Bucky’s belly as he kicked down another door and finally found it: though old and partly damaged, two small one-pilot jets were left in a hangar on the deepest level of the HYDRA compound. Both had been stripped of everything useful that could be removed, including emergency parachutes, but that did not worry Bucky. He’d done more with less before.

            The hangar led to a tunnel which ended with an underwater exit, far enough off the coast that the small plane was unlikely to be noticed. Cutting a wide berth around NYC, heading due south, Bucky input no coordinates into the jet’s computers, choosing instead to direct his flight path by the arrows of the compass rose.

            Even as the thought of coordinates passed through his mind, he felt blood rush away from his head; he squeezed the controls tightly, fighting the loss of direction, the sense of lightheadedness threatening much worse. Alone in the air as he was, one wrong thought could kill him.

            The trip took too long. As he got closer to his destination, thoughts of where he was going and what he was doing became harder to ignore, swirling around in the back of his head. His hand tight on the controls, he thought of Natasha’s voice, and then of Steve’s, and a silent mantra pulsed in his mind, taking up so much space that he could not consider the present.

            _Zhelaniye_ , he thought, hearing Steve’s wavering voice, his bad pronunciation ringing in Bucky’s ears. _Rzhavyy. Semnadtstat’. Rassvet. Pech’. Devyat’. Dobroserdechnyy. Vozvrashcheniye na rodinu. Odin. Gruzovoy vagon_.

            When spoken aloud, the words tore him apart, stripped him of any small agency he had left. In thought, however, they were not dangerous like the alternative was, and all it filled him with was a gentle emptiness. Despite himself, he somehow began to ache for the comforting presence of that tiny media player in hand, delivering Natasha’s gentle voice straight into his ears.

            It was several hours later that he reached the compound in the Rockies. He had ditched the plane somewhere off Mount Elbert, close enough to the snowy expanse below that he could tumble out with a roll, and come up relatively no worse for wear. Before this, he had made one stop.

            The place below the mountains was more of a bunker than a compound, he thought, as the great steel doors clanged shut behind him. All sound, the screaming wind through the mountains and the crunch of fresh-fallen snow, ceased the moment the doors closed. It was bare and empty. Lighting automatically seemed to switch on as soon as he moved, but it was dim, and only lit up a few yards in front of him. This place, too, had been abandoned since Bucky had last been there, although it had not been trashed like the base in New York.

            A familiar-looking seat surrounded by machines sat in one corner. Still at the door, Bucky watched it warily, as if it were wont to come to life all of its own, and somehow entice him once more into the surprising respite of surrender.

            Rationally, he knew it was a side-effect of the conditioning: he knew that being mind-controlled into a weapon, into a beast, was as violent as any of the torture HYDRA had ever subjected him to. But – and this, he could never tell the others, preferring by far they believe it to have been paralytic pain, above all – it had always come as such a relief. Such a sweet salve, relinquishing ownership over himself and thus forfeiting the pain in a compromise that meant he no longer had to think of what had been done to him. It could be addicting. Even more than Bucky feared relapse, perhaps, he feared the craving. He feared desire for control. In this way, he thought maybe he understood Stark better than the others did.

            But the chair was just a chair, and it was harmless now. Boldly, he strode up to the seat, his jaw clenched. He ran a hand over the computers, the complicated devices which generated meaningless, sourceless pain.

            On impulse, he turned, and lowered himself into the cold metal seat.

            Eyes closed, he leaned his head back, imagining the sensation of steel curved like a brace around his head, sending electricity spiking through his eye up into his brain. Reflexively, as if of its own accord, his jaw loosened and his mouth opened, making space for tentative fingers to place a chunk of plastic between his teeth.

            Instantly, he snapped his mouth shut, his back straightening like a rod. His flesh-and-blood hand flickered to the wire-crossed stump of his left arm. He got to his feet, twisting around to stare at the seat. His heart pumped wildly in his chest, beating against his ribcage.

            Raising one leg, he kicked hard at the back of the chair. It tumbled to the ground, dragging the rest of the equipment down with it. In the empty compound, the banging echoed faintly into the darkness.

            For good measure, he stamped hard on one of the computer monitors. It shattered.

            Bucky spat onto the pile of wrecked technology, then defiantly flipped it the bird. A meaningless gesture, really, apart from the vague sense of satisfaction it left in the pit of his stomach.

            There was a curious seduction about it, really. A strange yearning for pain, because that pain had always been paired with relief, and not the hollow pleasure Natasha had told him to associate with resistance. Genuine, real, bone-deep relief, a compulsion so great it took over where the occupation of his mind failed. Even in moments of glimpsed clarity, and he hated himself as he remembered this, hated himself even more for pretending he had forgotten, the desire for that sweet relief had been enough to drive him back, to pursue a mission to completion. _If you go back, they will make it all go away again. You won’t even know. You won’t even feel it anymore._

Bucky turned away from the broken chair.

            As far as he could tell, the bunker was empty. Despite this he trudged forward anyway, if only to put distance in between his body and the machines he had left on the floor.

            Another explosive blew out a locked vault, which was revealed to be filled with nonperishable food. Bucky rifled through the shelves – cans, dehydrated meals, dense protein packs. It occurred to him that maybe this was a bunker, after all, its original purpose having nothing to do with HYDRA’s evil schemes. Even the chair where his mind had been violated was movable, not a permanent fixture; this place, whatever it was, had only been a convenient headquarters for his mission all those years ago.

            Which, he thought, eyeing a can of green beans, searching for an expiration date, did not explain why he could hardly think of sharing its location without feeling queasy, or what had happened here that made it so damn top secret.

            He found no expiration date on any of the sundries, but they looked unfamiliar to him, practically unrecognizable. They were not of his generation, that was for sure, but judging from their outdated style and the thick layer of dust which lined the shelves, they were not of any particularly recent generation either. Some midway point between _then_ and _now_ was the best he could assume.

            There were a number of sleeping quarters, which were unlocked and empty and as untouched as the rest of the place, and there was what appeared to be a massive pit, sunken so deeply that Bucky could not see the bottom in the dim light, even when he took out his high-beam LED flashlight with which he had pointed out the cracked window back at Stark’s Penthouse. Along the edges of the pit’s walls spiraled a steel staircase.

            From his belt, Bucky took out his last explosive: a small, dense metal ball. Without arming it, he held it out, and then he dropped it into the pit.

            He counted the seconds as it fell. _One, two, three, four, five, six_ -

            With a loud, metallic _clang_ , the ball reached the bottom. Roughly, Bucky approximated the distance in his head, then took a deep breath and cocked his head slightly. _Survived worse than that before._

            He got to his feet. He took a few steps back, then gave a running leap into the chasm, avoiding the staircase jutting out from the steel-sheeted walls.

            He plunged into darkness, counting the seconds, allowing for a slight margin due to air resistance. Hoping his rough estimate was correct, he squeezed his eyes shut and bent his legs expectantly, preparing to land with a roll.

            The metal floor rushed up to meet him only slightly before he had anticipated, and the shock made his heart skip a beat. Just barely, he managed to roll with it, his body’s augmented structure enough to absorb the shock.

            In the darkness, he strained his ears for any hint of noise to betray someone else’s presence, but all he heard was the reverberations from his landing. Gingerly, he got to his feet.

            Automatic lights flickered on, the same as in the rest of the bunker. A glance around told him very little: the stairs led inevitably to this flat metal landing, and there were no openings or hinges along the walls. He crossed the circular space and bent over to pick up the small, spherical explosive he’d dropped, replacing it in his belt.

            Leaning his head back, he squinted back up the pit. A few hundred feet above him, the lights of the ledge from where he had dropped illuminated the ceiling of the pit, which had been raised enough to be out of sight before he jumped. It seemed to be made of roughly hewn rock.

            Bucky looked down at the steel floor beneath him, and he realized it wasn’t a floor at all.

            Neatly cut into the metal below his feet was a square door, with a slight depression Bucky guessed to be a handhold. Unable to hold both the explosive and open the door at the same time, he reluctantly replaced the metal ball into his belt, then knelt down. On second thought, as an extra precaution, he froze in place, and did not move a muscle.

            After five long minutes of inactivity, the low lights switched off. By that time, the ceiling of the pit too disappeared, as all of the bunker’s motion-sensor lights powered down.

            Slowly, slow enough as to not trigger the lights again, Bucky opened the trapdoor. Below – inside – there was darkness.

            Although it made no difference to his sight, Bucky closed his eyes and took a long, silent breath.

            Then he slid deftly into the darkness below.

            This time the drop was short. He landed on his feet, his boots clunking onto the metallic floor. Above him, the trapdoor clanged shut.

            He strained his ears, and squinted into the black darkness. This was a smaller space, he could tell, and it was warmer than the rest of the bunker and – once again he shut his eyes, focusing on his hearing. There, a few yards away from him, he swore he could hear – breathing-

            An abrupt electronic whine broke the deafening silence, and, acting on instinct alone, Bucky threw himself to the ground: a great burst of white light blasted where his head had been only moments before, temporarily blinding him, and the breathing became more audible, like gasping, and there was the sound of metal against metal, and blinking red light flooded the circular space along with a screaming alarm – Bucky had no time to recover before the metal room began to shake violently, deep rumbling like that of a thunderclap resounding on all sides – he managed to clamber to his feet, struggling to see straight through the shaking and the blinking lights, but he could just barely make out a man-shaped figure, the source of the heavy breathing.

            Bucky threw himself across the small room, teeth gnashing, and wrapped his one hand around the other man’s neck, squeezing hard. But the flesh did not give, allowing Bucky no real grip – the man’s skin was hard, like steel-

            All of the sudden, the rumbling stopped, and the blinking red lights flashed, then, with a _buzz_ , regular white fluorescents switched on as Bucky once again tried to tighten his hold-

            “ _Barnes_?”

            Bucky froze.

            Blinking against the sudden light, he stared straight at the man before him, realizing with a jolt why his neck would not give.

            “Stark?” he asked, his hand wrapped around Iron Man’s metal throat.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick warning, this chapter has some straight-up talk about suicide (altho all in a relatively light tone; as light as you can get given the circumstances). Please be careful if that kind of thing affects you!

            Bucky stared into Tony Stark’s face, then staggered backwards, gaping at him. A few feet away the helmet sat discarded, and Tony’s face was exposed except for a pair of slightly tinted glasses which covered his eyes. On the wall to the left of Tony, a pane of plastic was lifted up to expose a big red button, a caricature of an alarm.

            “What?” asked Bucky, trying to make sense of what just happened. Something fired up in his chest and he demanded, “What are you _doing_ here?”

            “What am I doing here, what are _you_ doing here!” replied Tony, then he made a face and he clutched his head, slowly sliding down the wall to sit, uselessly, on the floor. “And could you maybe lower the volume?”

            “Lower the-” Bucky’s eyes bulged in disbelief. “Are you hungover right now?”

            “No,” answered Tony, squeezing his eyes shut in pain. At Bucky’s disbelieving look, he added, “Maybe. A little, you know, I don’t think that’s the most important question at this exact moment in time, can we get back to what the hell you’re doing here?”

            “I’m here to rescue you,” said Bucky, “you asshole.”

            “Oh, well – nice going.” Tony gestured darkly at the ceiling above them. “Now we’re both stuck here.”

            “Stuck here?” echoed Bucky, watching Tony like one would watch an injured animal: warily, but also with the assurance that, if push came to shove, he would come out on top. “What do you mean stuck here?”

            “What do you mean what do I mean, we’re _stuck – here_ ,” he repeated, spreading his arms to signal the entirety of the small space. “This is a nuclear bunker, in case the whole retro horror movie vibe wasn’t obvious upstairs and this, this right here – this is the panic room,” he finished, “and now we’re stuck in it.”

            Bucky didn’t reply for a moment, glancing around the blank walls. “This is a panic room?” It somehow felt less likely, more inauthentic, without a plain cot sitting smack-dab in the middle of the room, like back at base.

            “Oh, my God,” muttered Tony, pressing against his temples. “Are you just going to repeat everything I say, over and over again, until we die?”

            “Nobody’s dying here,” said Bucky, getting to his feet.

            “Yes! Actually, yes, right here is where we are both going to die, in fact, right here in this room,” began Tony, pressing against his face with metal fingers. The desperation in his voice was palpable, and had the effect of making Bucky feel slightly indecent, like he was accidentally seeing something that was meant to be private. “Because this right here was the absolute, last resort, end-of-the-world nuclear disaster-ready, up to and including,” Tony held up his hands, pointing to the ceiling again, “dropping an entire mountain on our heads, just to shield us from nuclear radiation.”

            Bucky stared at him. “What does that-?”

            “I _swear to God_ Barnes, if you ask me what that means one more time-”

            “You _buried_ us?” asked Bucky, his voice raising as his pulse spiked with furious incredulity. “You buried us under a thousand tons of _mountain_?”

            “It’s, like,” muttered Tony, closing his eyes again, “something closer to a million, or a billion, depending on the size of the mountain, and also, didn’t I ask you to lower your voice-”

            “ _What the fuck is wrong with you?_ ”

            “I panicked, okay!” replied Tony sharply, shooting Bucky an ugly glare. “This is a panic room, I panicked, what do you want from me!”

            Bucky gaped at the man in front of him, a whole host of retorts stalled in his throat. He too closed his eyes, scrubbing his face with his hand, then reopened them, as if hoping this were a bad dream he could wake himself from. When that did not seem to work, he looked around, pressing his hand to the cold steel walls in a daze.

            Sounding more tired than Bucky had yet heard him, Tony spoke up once more. “You’re not with the other guy, are you?” he asked. He sounded, distinctly, like he was giving up.

            “Steve’s not here,” Bucky murmured, looking up at the ceiling. It was slightly concave now, bulging from the weight of dirt and earth above it.

            “I’m not talking about Steve,” groaned Tony, wrenching himself up to a more respectable sitting position. “I mean the other guy, with the big gun. The assassin guy.”

            Bucky stopped cold, his hand on the wall. He turned around. “What assassin?” he asked.

            Tony groaned again, hands massaging his head. “The one with the big gun,” he repeated, with little patience. “The one who came to my goddamn home. Are you with him?”

            “What did he look like?” asked Bucky, watching Tony. “What did he want?”

            Unhappily, Tony threw up his hands. “Okay, listen, buddy, I am not really not having any of this third degree right now, if we’re stuck here together then I’m living my last few hours with mutual respect for my fellow man, or else our ghosts are gonna be going at it for all of eternity-”

            Interrupting with an intense sigh of exasperation, Bucky said, “ _No_ , I’m not with the other assassin.” Bucky would’ve thought this was good news, but Tony let out a long breath, sinking down once more against the wall. “Why?” asked Bucky, mostly out of suspicion, but not without some curiosity. “Is that who you were expecting?”

            Tony didn’t answer, but just leaned the top of his head against the wall.

            “And, what?” Bucky asked, that same spark of disbelieving fury returning. “You were going to try to trap him in this tiny panic room with you, and take him one-on-one?”

            Letting his breath out in a slow hum, Tony murmured, “More or less.”

            Bucky stared at him. “What if you lost?” he asked.

            Tony gestured to the button. “Hence the whole buried-alive, you-and-I-are-going-down-together-buddy kind of idea.”

            “Jesus H. fucking Christ,” said Bucky bluntly, staring at Tony. “Was this a plan of attack, or a suicide attempt?”

            “Okay,” said Tony, “for the record, not looking for any sympathy here or anything, pal-”

            “Yeah,” grumbled Bucky, “good.”

            “-but, you know what, sure, a pretty good case could be made for the latter.” Without opening his eyes, Tony shook his head very softly, then winced at the pain it apparently caused him. He muttered, “You try coming up with a plan when you’re drunk out of your goddamn mind and two days in to a full-blown depressive episode.”

            “Why,” said Bucky, “the _fuck_ wouldn’t you _call anyone_? Or do – fucking – _anything other_ than trap yourself in a panic room with a guy who wants to kill you?”

            “Yeah, okay,” began Tony, cringing in pain as he glanced up at Bucky, through tinted glasses, “did you space out for the whole suicide attempt thing, or did you just – was this not a thing in the ‘40s, are you not understanding my words, or-”

            “Don’t give me that crap,” barked Bucky. “Your ego’s too big for that, Stark.”

            Tony blinked, his eyelids slightly out of sync, then watched Bucky guardedly, as if sizing him up. “For the record,” said Tony. The glare in his eye softened slightly, as if he couldn’t keep it up, “that’s dismissive, and stigmatizing, and, I don’t know, my therapist would probably call it other things which I can’t think of at the moment because I’m badly, _badly_ hungover and also, at the very least _passively_ suicidal, alright Barnes, let me have that. Like, clinically diagnosed and everything. Yeah.” Bucky had opened his mouth to interrupt, but when Tony paused for a reply, he said nothing. He only shook his head, a tight expression on his face. “That’s what I thought. Also,” he continued, “if you must know, flying two thousand miles on reserve power in what is still just a prototype suit takes up a whole lot of power, so yeah, alright, when I woke up upstairs I was out of juice, alone, and stuck in the suit in the damn Rocky Mountains, where there is absolutely no cellular connection what-so-fucking-ever, and have I mentioned yet, _extremely hungover_. So,” Tony held his hands up, gesturing once more at the room. “Was this the best possible outcome of events? No it wasn’t, but again, at least this way that asshole who was after me got buried down here too. So he couldn’t go back to my _home_ ,” he added, with an odd, new fierceness in his voice. “So he wouldn’t – so nobody else would get hurt because of me.” He wasn’t looking at Bucky now, his gaze unfocused halfway down the wall, as if talking to someone else – talking to himself. “Nobody else,” he muttered, “gonna die for me…”

            For a long moment, Bucky stood there, regarding Stark.

            He didn’t know what to think. On one hand, yes, it was a terrible plan for a superhero to make, especially one who was supposed to be as smart as Tony Stark.

            On the other hand, Bucky had known men who’d blown themselves up in order to bury the bad guy with them, and in war, that sort of thing would be considered honorable.

            Bucky took a long breath in through his nose, then let it out through his mouth. Then he too lowered himself to take a seat on the floor, leaning his back on the wall opposite of Tony.

            “You’re dumber than I thought, Stark,” he said, then added, “and I already thought you were pretty damn dumb, after Siberia.”

            Tony’s eyes flashed, but Bucky didn’t give him time to speak.

            “But brave,” continued Bucky shortly. “You’re braver than I thought, too.”

            Tony just watched him, an awful blankness on his face. Then he dropped his gaze, shaking his head. “Yeah, well,” he breathed. “Dumb and brave is a pretty useless combination.”

            Bucky shook his head. “Not for a soldier.”

            “I don’t know if you’d noticed, but the war’s over, buddy.”

            Bucky shrugged. “There’s always a war,” he replied, and the reality of the whole situation was beginning to set in, and when he let out his next breath, it was with a relief unlike so many he had already experienced: a permanent relief. The last relief there ever was. “Between the good guys, and the bad guys,” he continued. “Democracy and fascism, if you’re political and that’s what you want to call it.” Bucky watched Tony. He felt, suddenly, very tired. “Between order, and chaos.”

            There was a moment’s pause, except for a slight crumble of earth above them. Tony sniffed, then wiped his nose roughly and said, “You sure you’re not all HYDRA-‘roided out right now? ‘Cause that sounds an alarmingly lot like the kind of heavy-handed rhetorical logic HYDRA  likes to use, to be perfectly real with you.”

            “Well,” answered Bucky frankly, feeling an odd sense of freedom, buried inside a mountain’s core, “maybe HYDRA wasn’t completely wrong about everything.”

            “Yeah, you realize those guys are literal Nazis, right?”

            Bucky didn’t answer this right away, his eyes focused on the indented ceiling. Then his gaze flickered back down to meet Tony’s, whose frown was halfway obscured by the glasses. Again, Bucky gave a noncommittal shrug. “A broken clock still tells time twice a day.”

            “Unless it’s digital, in which case, it just kind of turns off and is absolutely and totally useless. Besides,” added Tony, with what might’ve been a hint of self-righteousness, “what would Cap say, Soldier?”

            Mirroring Tony, Bucky leaned his head against the wall as well, closing his eyes. “Don’t know if you noticed, but Cap’s not here right now.”

            As if he hadn’t noticed, Tony looked suddenly around the panic room.

            “Yeah,” he murmured, a frown on his face. “That is kinda weird. Did you sneak out without Daddy’s permission?”

            Bucky let out a genuine snicker. “He like it when you call him that, Stark?”

            “Hey, that was a joke at your expense. Take it like a man.”

            “Oh, I bet he _really_ likes it when you talk to him like that.”

            “I think you think you’re being funny right now,” remarked Tony mildly, “but look, hey, it’s the twenty-first century, and you’re just being really really homophobic. Ignorant,” he said. “Just, super-duper, ignorant jokes, Barnes.”

            Bucky raised his head, to look back out at Tony mildly. “We’re gonna die, anyway,” he said. “Who’s here to object?”

            “Me,” said Tony. “Stark Industries doesn’t make monthly donations to the tolerance-related charity of Pepper’s choice for me to sit here and listen to you make jokes about how gay I am with Captain America, I’ve see enough of that from the internet already.”

            “That charity give you the high horse you’re riding on?”

            “Hey,” said Tony sincerely, leaning in. “I’ve spent most of my life being an asshole. I’m not about to quit just because I’m about to die.”

            There was a short silence.

            “I saw your girl,” said Bucky, shortly. “Pepper.”

            Tony didn’t look at him. “How is she?”

            “Worried about you.”

            Tony closed his eyes. “That’s not news. I stress her out. I’m bad for her blood pressure, that’s what her doctor told her. Like, an actual medical professional said I wasn’t good for her, as if the universe wasn’t being clear enough about its cosmic direction on its own.”

            “She said you were trying to sober up.”

            Although Tony didn’t quite make a face, he cocked his head slightly, which Bucky understood to mean probably more than Tony had meant to reveal. “ _Trying_ being the operative word there.”

            “Heard you made it, what, two weeks clean?”

            “Well,” sighed Tony, “now it’s more like an hour and half, but I appreciate the condescension.”

            “I’m not trying to be condescending,” said Bucky.

            “Again with the _trying_.”

            “I mean I get it,” said Bucky, his tone hardening slightly. “I used to smoke.” He adjusted his posture slightly, resting his one elbow on his upright knee; he leaned forward, as if huddling over a cigarette, protecting it from the wind. “Before the war. Before the Commandos, before Captain America.” His mouth worked slightly, as if rolling something between his teeth. “Steve had that – you know, where it makes it hard to breathe. When we were kids he’d wake up in the middle of the night, wheezing like he was a hundred years old-” Bucky broke off, grimacing, trying to remember the name of the ailment.

            Tony took pity on him. “Asthma,” he provided.

            Bucky nodded. “Asthma,” he repeated. “Which you didn’t really treat back then. You just dealt with it and went to church on Sunday and prayed he wouldn’t die.”

            Bucky paused, dragging his hand across his mouth, eyes far away.

            “You know I loved that kid,” he murmured, shaking his head. “And I’d’ve died for him, in a second, I swear I would’ve. But when you’re just a kid, you make up all kinds of reasons to get mad at everything, and I remember being fifteen and blowing smoke in his face because I was damn well sick of – sick of _him_ being sick.” Bucky raised his hand to his face, massaging his brow. “Stupid. Sent him to the hospital twice for it, because I was an ass and I liked teasing him.”

            Tony watched Bucky, his expression flat. He shrugged. “Kids do stupid things.”

            “Yeah,” muttered Bucky, taking his hands away from his face. “What I’m trying to say it, Steve spent years trying to get me to quit, because he said, if it makes _me_ sick it’s gonna make _you_ sick too. I didn’t listen to him. I liked it.”

            With no slight hint of impatience, Tony said, “Just spoil the ending for me here buddy, you end up quitting because you almost killed your best friend with an asthma attack? Is that the point here? Because I could’ve guessed that the second you started talking.”

            Glancing up at Tony with heavy eyes, Bucky shook his head. “Steve sent me a pack with the first letter I got. I remember giving one to one of the guys in my unit.” He stopped abruptly, his jaw clenching slightly. Then he glanced back up. “You know that old war superstition about three lights on a match?”

            Tony nodded.

            Bucky shook his head. “Only takes two. And then,” he held his arm up level with his eye, and mimed a sniper shot straight through Tony’s eye.

            “Okay,” said Tony, unimpressed. “So your point is that all it took for you to quit is a traumatic experience, is that the theme you’re getting at here?”

            With an exasperated gleam of frustration in his eyes, Bucky leaned back hard against the wall. “You always in such a hurry to get to the end of a story?”

            “When the story is stupid, yes,” answered Tony. “Listen, I’ve encountered plenty of what you might delicately refer to as ‘trauma’ in the past few years, and believe me, that is some straight-up terrible advice.”

            “Maybe it wasn’t advice,” Bucky shot back. “Maybe I’m just saying – I get it. I’ve been there too.”

            Tony ran a hand down his face, resisting the urge to give a very melodramatic roll of his eyes. “Sure, Barnes, we have so much in common. I’m a functioning alcoholic, you used to try and kill a baby Captain America with secondhand smoke, amazing. All these neat stories, maybe you’ll get your podcast or something once you’re in prison. Who knows, maybe they’ll even make a Netflix documentary about you.”

            There was a short silence. Bucky regarded the man before him with a tough eye, slowing taking him in, as if sizing him up. “Can’t go to prison if I’m dead.”

            Tony flashed him a humorless smile. “Always a silver lining. I’m starting to see why Cap gave up absolutely everything and ruined his life and the lives of half the team and totally disregarded international law to go save you.”

            Bucky took that as a compliment. “Thanks,” he said.

            “Wow, and polite, too,” added Tony. “Now, is that a 1940s thing, or is that a friends-with-Captain-America thing? Because if it’s the latter, y’know, that could potentially explain a lot about my whole situation with him.”

            Bucky didn’t answer this, but Tony hadn’t really been looking for an answer, anyway.

            For a few minutes, there was a deep, cavernous silence between them.

            Then Bucky asked, “How long is the air in here gonna last?”

            Instead of a proper reply, Tony shrugged. “The suit’s got an air filtration system. Hardly takes any power at all, might last a couple days.”

            The blanketing silence descended again.

            “You should turn it off,” said Bucky.

            Neither man looked at the other.

            “Yeah,” said Tony.

            He lifted his arm, unlatched a panel on the back of his wrist, and tapped a small screen there. Maybe it was only Bucky’s imagination, but he thought he could feel an immediate difference: the air suddenly got staler, and his breaths shallowed, not quite enough to completely satisfy his lungs.

            “You never answered my question,” said Bucky, nodding at Tony. “Why are you here?”

            Tony watched him, as if this did not make any sense. “Were you asleep for the part about the assassin, or did you just not care?”

            “I mean, here,” said Bucky, pointing up at the ceiling. “This bunker. How do you know about this place?”

            “How do _you_?”

            “I asked first.”

            “Listen,” said Tony, lifting his head off the wall. “One of us is going to have to be the bigger man and fess up first, or else we’re gonna die just sitting here glaring at each other.”

            “I did ask first.”

            “Yeah,” replied Tony, waving his hand dismissively, “but I’m the bigger dick here, so let’s just skip all the arguing which would inevitably lead to that conclusion anyhow, and you can just tell me now how you found this place.”

            Part of Bucky did want to argue, but Tony was right; it wasn’t worth it.

            “This is a HYDRA base,” said Bucky. “I was here on a mission some years ago.”

            To Bucky’s slight surprise, Tony’s response to this was a strange frown of confusion, then a dawning look of fear. “Barnes?” he asked, but his voice sounded very distant. “Barnes!”

            It was then that Bucky realized he hadn’t managed to say those words out loud. He hadn’t managed to say any words at all, but rather stared at Tony through eyes which were beginning to pulse black, squeezing all air out of his lungs; muscles along his neck began to tighten and pull taught, and he tried to close his eyes, pulling away from the thought of speaking words about this place, z _helaniye_ , he thought, _rzhavyy, semnadtstat’-_

            All at once Bucky’s hearing returned, and he heard Tony muttering, “Oh, _shit_ , do _not_ leave me stuck in here with your dead ass, Barnes-”

            It broke, and Bucky inhaled deeply. He opened his eyes, the spots fading from his vision.

            “Oh, Jesus,” sighed Tony, in relief. “What just happened?”

            Bucky shook his head, his jaw clenching. “I…can’t talk about that,” said Bucky, very carefully directing his thoughts, blocking out the possibility of revealing something even implicating the truth. “As the Winter Soldier,” he explained, ostensibly changing the topic, “you need to understand…many things were taken from me.”

            It was oblique, but something appeared in Tony’s eye that Bucky tried his best not to notice. “No,” Tony mumbled, quietly, and Bucky didn’t think he was talking to him.

            Then Tony said, “All right, let’s table that one for now, and move on. How’d you convince Cap to let you out all on your own?”

            “I didn’t,” answered Bucky. “I just went.”

            “Yeah,” said Tony, watching Bucky thoughtfully. “Thought so. The guy’d have to be criminal or just plain neglectful to let you out of the house with only one arm.”

            “I manage okay,” said Bucky, almost defensively.

            “Okay enough to fight, though?” Tony sounded skeptical. “In a live combat situation?”

            “If your pal Rhodey can fight without legs,” Bucky shot back, “I can do it with one arm.”

            A burst of anger flickered across Tony’s expression, and he replied loudly, “Rhodey still _has_ legs, they just don’t work perfectly anymore. But it’s fine. I’m gonna fix that.”

            Bucky watched him. “He didn’t make it sound like it needed to be ‘fixed,’ to me,” said Bucky. “Anyway. Too late for that now.”

            There was a silence. Tony leaned his head back against the wall. “Yeah. I guess so.”

            Although it was deep, empty, and pervading, the quiet between them was somehow not as awkward as Bucky would’ve anticipated something like this to be. Maybe it was the sense of resignation, or the fact that they were separated from the real world by several thousand tons of dirt. Maybe, even, it was the specter of imminent death looming above them both.

            Something occurred to Bucky, and he pulled something tiny out of his pocket. “Hey,” he said. He threw the thing at Tony.

            It bounced off Tony’s chest plate with a little _ping_ , falling to the floor a few feet away. Tony leaned over and picked it up, struggling at first to pick it up with his thick metallic fingers. When he finally succeeded, he held it up in front of his face, inspecting the thing. His gaze refocused past the tiny metal object, at Bucky. “What is this?”

            “It’s a tracker,” Bucky replied. “Wasn’t really sure how I was going to turn it on without, you know, frying my brain, but it’s a moot point now.” He gestured at the ceiling. “Signal couldn’t make it through a mountain’s worth of debris, anyhow.”

            Tony regarded the tiny device between his fingers. He tapped it once, depressing the small button, and it began to blink red, on and off, emitting a signal blocked before it could penetrate the dense rock above them.

            Bucky gave a bitter smile. “Who’s the optimist now?”

            Although it was a little cumbersome in the suit, Tony gave a small shrug. “If they do ever dig us out, I want it to at least look like we tried.”

            Across the small room, Bucky nodded wryly at the tracking device. “How to kill yourself without making it look like you’re trying to kill yourself.”

            “Anybody ever tell you you’re kind of toxic, Barnes?”

            Bucky returned the shrug. “Small mercies,” he said. Even as he said it, the words tasted bitter in his mouth. “It’s a kind thing to do. Makes a much better story than the alternative.”

            “A story for who?”

            Bucky leaned his head against the wall behind him, settling into his spot on the floor. He closed his eyes. “Depends on who finds us.”

            “You think they’ll give us a museum exhibit, like they did for Cap?”

            “Hope not,” muttered Bucky. “That thing was pretty corny. And they got my birthday wrong.”

            “The _Smithsonian_ got your birthday wrong?”

            “Yeah,” said Bucky. He waved his hand, holding up his thumb and forefinger to outline an imaginary box. “ _Born in 1916_ , in big ol’ letters. Mm-mm. March of 1917.”

            “That seems…” Tony paused, as if searching for the words, “…very much unlike the fine professionals over at the Smithsonian Institute.”

            “To be fair,” added Bucky, “my parents got married same year I was born, and it was easier to keep secrets back then. I could be a year older’n I am, and not even know it.”

            Tony narrowed his eyes slightly. “Is this you telling me that I can call you a bastard and actually have, like, a fifty-fifty chance of not being inaccurate?”

            “History never gets the details right,” said Bucky, shaking his head. “That’s all.”

            Tony glanced around the panic room. “Not sure the details matter, bud. Not in the big picture.”

            Bucky picked at the jacket sleeve covering his metal stump of a left arm. Semi-unconsciously, his fingers began to untangle the tight military knot of the shortened sleeve. A small smile cracked his face. “They probably took me out of that exhibit,” he said. “After, y’know. After they found out about me.”

            He glanced up at Tony expectantly, but Tony only replied, “What, you expect me to know? They closed the Cap exhibit last September, I never saw it.”

            The knot in Bucky’s sleeve finally loosened, and his fingers slipped into the fabric, touching the harsh steel wires. Even though the arm was gone, he could still feel the touch, tingling all the way back to where metal plates melted into flesh. Sensation in the arm had been hyper-delicate, fine enough to sense vibration across a stone building, or detect a heartbeat through touch, sharp enough to feel blood pumping through veins beneath skin.

            The fiery blast which had removed the arm had felt like an explosion in some small corner of his brain, overstimulation to the nth degree which left him paralyzed beyond control for one heart-stopping moment, when he could not see or hear or feel anything. If there had been pain, he could not remember it; but that was the nature of pain, he thought, that torture feels new and unrecognizable each time it starts, and therefore you can never blunt yourself against it, and therefore there is no protection. Pain is not meant to be adapted to: it is meant to be endured.

            But when Tony had destroyed Bucky’s arm, there had been no pain. Instead there had been a curious lack of sensation, as if blindfolded, as if deaf in one ear. At first, it had been terrifying, alienating, as if he or the world were only half-real. But in the weeks and the months since then, it had begun to feel good not to need the arm. Bucky liked to think he’d learned to love the silence.

            “This is nice,” said Bucky. “Nothing says making peace with yourself quite like dying with a guy you once tried to kill.”

            “Say any more stupid shit and I still might go all Yoda on your ass.”

            Bucky frowned. “What?”

            Tony glanced at him. “Do, or do not,” he quoted. “There is no try.”

            Bucky still frowned at him. “What does that-?”

            “Hey,” barked Tony. He held up one hand, pointing the blaster cannon on his palm at Bucky. “Didn’t I tell you not to say that again?”

            Warily watching the blaster, the charred remnants of his arm a vivid reminder of what it could do, Bucky said, “I thought you were out of power.”

            “Got just enough left for one big blast,” replied Tony. “Enough to light up this whole room, probably. Get it all over quick, if I wanted to.”

            He didn’t want to, which Bucky could tell, so he didn’t make Tony say it.

            “I’m sorry it was me,” said Bucky lowly. Then he cocked his head slightly, as if partially taking that back. “I mean, it’s probably a little gratifying to know you’re taking me with you, but still. I bet this wasn’t really how you pictured it going down.”

            “No, no,” responded Tony, leaning back and closing his eyes behind the slightly tinted glasses. “There’s nobody I’d rather hold hands and go all _Thelma and Louise_ with than the brainwashed ex-assassin who went full-on _Drive_ on my parents.”

            “Who’s Louise?” asked Bucky, confused.

            “Whatever,” said Tony. He gently banged the back of his head against the wall, over and over again. “It was twenty-five years ago. I’m a grown-ass man, you would not be the first to tell me, Barnes, that it’s high damn time I get over my daddy issues.”

            “I didn’t say that,” said Bucky.

            “And look,” said Tony, holding out his hands, gesturing around them. “Look at me. Did my best. Dealt with it, moved on, trusted my dad’s ghost enough to use his goddamn nuclear fallout shelter as my safehouse, didn’t I? And now look where it’s got me.”

            Something jolted, very slightly, in Bucky’s stomach. He lowered his legs, sitting crisscross, and leaned in towards Tony.

            “This place belonged to your father?” he asked.

            Tony sniffed slightly, running a hand down his face. “Yeah,” he replied. “Dad had a hand in creating the atom bomb, and he was terrified of it for the rest of his life. He had this place built before I was born.”

            “How do you know about it?”

            With one hand, Tony reached up and knocked against the steel wall behind him. “There’s a ski lodge a couple hours away. We were here on vacation once when I was a kid. He promised to take me out here and show me around,” he smiled bitterly, “but my father wasn’t great with promises. I think we were there two days before he dragged us home for a, I don’t know, a _work emergency_ , or something. As usual.”

            There was a deep frown carved into Bucky’s face as he stared at Tony, trying to process this information. Something urgent tugged in his head, wrestling with his consciousness, tightening his muscles involuntarily. He fought against it, wielding logic as his shield: he could not be at fault if it was someone else who spoke.

            “When was this?” asked Bucky.

            Tony shook his head, an indication he didn’t know or didn’t care. “Long time ago,” he said. “I was a kid.”

            “What year?”

            Tony looked up at Bucky, saw how intently he watched him. “I don’t know,” he answered. “’74, ’75, maybe.”

            Bucky’s insides felt cold. It returned with a blinding flash, sense memory causing the fingers of his remaining hand to twitch.

            He remembered a woman on her knees, her eyes open in hate and defiance. He remembered pressing a gun to the back of her head, and watching the graceful curve of her body arc as she collapsed onto the ground. He remembered a truck down a dusty highway a hundred miles away, and stopping in the dark to kick a body out onto the dirt road.

            He remembered the year in a date scrawled onto paper, as he recounted to his handler the exactly how he’d done it, every order followed perfectly.

            _1975_.

            “Woah,” came Tony’s voice, far away once again. “Woah, woah, woah, what’s – Barnes, hold on, what are you-”

            Bucky became vaguely aware that he was doubled over, clutching his head, his vision pulsing once more into blackness. With supreme strength of will, he pushed back against the pain, forcing its retreat, banishing all thoughts of this place and to whom it belonged from his head.

            Breathing heavily, Bucky came back to the present. “I’m alright,” he grunted.

            When he managed to drag his gaze back up to meet Tony’s, there was no mistaking the fear in that look.

            The tension of the moment held, neither daring to breathe, as if the air in the panic room had already been all used up.

            And then it broke. “You know something,” said Tony.

            “I don’t know,” said Bucky, shaking his head. “I don’t know anything.”

            “You know something,” repeated Tony, eyes boring into him. “You know something about this place right here. That’s how you found me.”

            “I _don’t_ ,” repeated Bucky, refusing to meet Tony’s gaze. “Stop saying I do.”

            “Don’t lie to me, Barnes.”

            Tony’s voice ended on a wavering high note, but he stopped abruptly there. He stared at Bucky, his jaw tight, for a few seconds more, then finally broke his gaze, shaking his head.

            “Maybe it’s better not to know,” he said lowly. He leaned his head back. “I hope there’s an afterlife,” he declared, sinking down against the wall slightly, “so I can kick my dad’s ass in Heaven. Or the other place, I guess is more likely.”

            “There’s always Purgatory,” suggested Bucky, who had been an altar boy at St. James as a child, along with Steve. He rubbed his head and blinked his eyes, still trying to shake the spots from his eyes. “Be a good place to beat the snot outta your old man. Probably score you both points.”

            Tony let out a grunting laugh. “That’s the truest thing you’ve said since you got here.” Then, with a sigh, he added, “Ah – religious talk and group suicide. You know what’d make this really legit? Some poison Kool-Aid.”

            Bucky watched him from his tired place against the opposite wall. “I don’t know what that means,” he said.

            In genuine surprise and with mild interest, Tony replied, “Really? You guys didn’t do that one?” He waited as if for a reply, which Bucky could not give, so he just gave a baffled, noncommittal shrug. “Huh. I’d’ve put money on some kind of shady evil-organization intervention there.”

            “Believe it or not,” said Bucky tiredly, leaning back against the wall, “humanity can manage some truly magnificent fuck-ups all on their own sometimes.”

            “Hey,” said Tony. “That reminds me, you are just, like, a total potty mouth. Cap put up with that?”

            Bucky looked at Tony uncomprehendingly. “What?”

            “The dirty mouth,” added Tony. “You know, the swears, the F-bombs. When I was on the Avengers with him, that kind of talk bothered the hell out of him.”

            “No,” said Bucky, shaking his head. “You’re thinking of someone else.”

            “Uh, no, Agent Smith, I’m really not. But then again I should’ve figured you’d be the bad cop in that relationship. How many times did Mister All-American Golden Boy bail your ass out of trouble as a kid?”

            “What?” asked Bucky again, looking genuinely confused. “Are you talking about Steve?”

            “Yes, kid, I’m talking about Steve, who else could I possibly mean when I say _Mister All-American Golden Boy_? I mean, really.”

            “No, no no,” said Bucky, shaking his head. “No way. Steve never bailed me out of anything, he was always the one kicking up trouble. I had to chase him around all the time when we were kids just to make sure he survived high school.”

            “No kidding? Huh,” said Tony, the expression on his face making it very clear he found this information difficult to digest. “Man, that really doesn’t jive with the whole Captain America truth-justice-and-the-American-way thing, does it? I just assumed they’d picked the grungy streetwise sidekick to turn into a super-assassin, like you two were some old-fashioned vintage version of Goofus and Gallant.” He frowned. “You guys have Highlights Magazine in the ‘40s?”

            “Those words, in that order,” said Bucky, exhausted, “mean nothing to me.”

            “Okay,” said Tony, with a jerk of his shoulders. “So I guess that’s a no.”

            There was a long silence. Bucky leaned his head back, letting his eyes flutter closed. It would be smart, he thought, to fall asleep: then death would come gently, rob him of his breath before he noticed, lost to the outside world. But he had no headphones here. His heart dropped slightly as he thought of it, of Natasha’s quiet voice soothing him, keeping the nightmares at bay. No; if his dreams were violent, then he had no desire to sleep. After everything he had been through, he would meet death as Bucky Barnes, not as the Winter Soldier.

            The name tossed over and over again in his head. _Bucky Barnes. James Buchanan Barnes_. It still felt strange to him to think of himself as a man with that name. His instinct was that he did not have a name, that he did not need one. You had to love a weapon to give it a name, and no one had loved the Winter Soldier.

            “Hey,” said Tony.

            Bucky opened his eyes halfway to look out at the man. He looked back at Bucky with an odd mask of vulnerability, like a kid asking his parent a question to which he fears the answer.

            It took Tony a moment to visibly gather up his courage, and then he asked, “We’re cool, right?” He pointed at the blaster on his palm. “I don’t have to keep this thing on, or anything? You’re not going to Hulk out on me?” He glanced upwards at some imaginary person above them and added, under his breath, “Sorry, Bruce.”

            Grimly, Bucky shook his head. “Not unless you know the ten trigger words,” he said. “Which are in Russian.”

            Tony held up his hand, his thumb and forefinger a half inch’s space apart. “I know a little Russian,” he said. He shrugged. “There was – a thing, a few years back. Thought it might be useful to pick some up.”

            “Oh, really?” asked Bucky, with a shade of interest. “Try me.”

            “It’s rusty,” Tony added. “It was – business-related jargon, mostly. There was an associate. Not an associate, an ex-associate of my father’s, well, the son of an ex-associate of my father’s – anyway,” he said, sensing, correctly, that Bucky didn’t care. “Okay. Tell me if I’m saying this right.”

            He said a poorly-pronounced sentence, which made Bucky immediately frown, sure he had misheard. Tony grinned at him. “How was that?”

            “Well,” began Bucky, honestly. “Did you mean to say, _Eat my ass, you motherfucking cocksucker_?”

            Grinning, Tony fist pumped in air. “Nailed it.”

            Despite himself, Bucky couldn’t help but let out a little laugh. “That doesn’t sound business-related to me.”

            “I may have forgotten to mention, the son of an ex-associate of my dad was a total dick. Like, supervillain level. Way worse than you, no brainwashing. Just a shitty upbringing and a terrible father figure. Which,” Tony said, tilting his head thoughtfully, “might count as a form of brainwashing, if you think about it.” He pointed at Bucky, cocking an eyebrow. “We’ll come back to that later, I’m sure.”

            Against the hard wall behind him, Bucky stretched his back, rubbing at a knot of muscle. His body felt still felt sore from the stress of a seizure a few hours ago. Thinking about that seizure reminded him of Tony’s Penthouse, and of Steve, whom he didn’t want to think about because then he had to remember the man was somewhere out there, looking for him. Bucky watched Tony instead. He thought he’d gotten a read on the man first in Berlin, when he had shown how little he knew about Steve by demanding that Steve stand down, and then again in Siberia, when blind rage and pain had eclipsed all reason. Neither of these reads prepared him for exchanging insults in Russian while trapped inside a steel tomb.

            “Tony,” said Bucky. Tony, partway through massaging his forehead, glanced up. Bucky gave him what he hoped was a friendly smile but, judging from Tony’s reaction, he didn’t quite manage it. “Don’t worry. We’re – cool,” he said, answering Tony’s question from before. “You’re not in any danger from me. I promise I won’t kill you,” he paused, as if reconsidering this, then added, “Unless we’re running out of air, and you’re slowly suffocating, and you ask me to. I’d do a mercy killing. That’d be okay.”

            Tony gave him an unintelligibly sincere smile. “Fantastic,” he said. “Guess that’s pretty much the best I could hope for, given the circumstances.”

            Bucky returned the smile, a little sadder, a little softer. He leaned his head back against the steel wall. There was quiet between the two of them, but it wasn’t as heavy as Bucky would have thought. It was a little less morbid, and a little more pleasant.

            “I could really use a drink right now,” muttered Tony, his head resting against the wall behind him.

            Across from him, Bucky mirrored his movements.

            “I could really use a smoke,” he said.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to stick with MCU canon regarding Natasha's background and age.

            “Approaching coordinates,” said Steve, flipping a few switches along the control panel. “Natasha, are you picking up anything on radar?”

            “Not yet,” she answered, her eyes fixed on a series of complex computer screens. “You really don’t have to keep asking me that every five seconds, Steve, I’ll let you know if I get anything.”

            Steve didn’t answer right away, flying the jet smoothly through the frozen early morning darkness. In a few minutes they would bisect the coordinates they’d picked up from Tony’s phone, and then that was it: they would be out of leads, resigned to combing through the mountains, like searching for a needle in the middle of a desert.

            “Alright,” he said. “We’ll keep scanning.”

            From his seat in the jet’s cabin, Rhodey said, “We’re only a few miles out from Tony’s cabin. I know we didn’t pick up any activity there, but it might be smart to check it out. Maybe Tony left some kind of clue there about his safehouse.”

            With a hint of frustration, Sam muttered, “Some kind of _clue_ , who are we, the damn Scooby Gang?”

            “It’s something,” added Rhodey pointedly, shooting a glare towards Sam. “Otherwise, if you haven’t noticed, we’re kind of out of options.”

            “It’s a good idea,” said Steve, from the pilot’s seat. “We need to start somewhere, and chances are good there’s something there that might tell us what Tony was thinking.”

            “Tony wasn’t _thinking_ anything,” Natasha pointed out, glancing around from the screens. “He was drunk out of his mind.”

            Steve would’ve closed his eyes, running out of patience, but he was piloting the plane and couldn’t afford to. “I meant when he set up the safehouse,” he replied clearly. Lowering his voice, he added, “Nat, you could show a little compassion.”

            Natasha sent a withering glance his way. “Think there’s a chance you might be in the wrong business for that, Rogers.”

            It was Steve who shook his head then, more in plain denial than disappointment. “You’re not a spy anymore,” he said. “You’re a superhero.”

            Ignoring this, Sam got to his feet in the cabin of the jet. “I’ll go with Jim,” he said to Steve and Nat. He tapped the commlink in his ear. “Keep us updated if you spot anything.”

            “Same goes for you. Watch your six. Tony’s assassin might have had the same idea we do.”

            “Stay in range,” said Sam, to Steve. “There’s shit reception all the way up here. Rhodey,” he said, nodding at the other man, who nodded; there was a concentrated pause before he got to his feet, a momentary lag in between brain waves and the artificial connections of the robotic armor he wore. Although it was a slightly clunky, awkward motion, he managed to get up, and Natasha hit a series of controls to open up the bay doors for them. A rush of frigid wind penetrated the jet; no blizzard battered the mountain slopes, but at this altitude the gusts were still strong and cold enough to be dangerous. Wrapped in several thermal-insulated layers, Sam lowered goggles onto his face, then cast one look around at Rhodey.

            “See you on the ground,” he shouted, and he jumped headfirst out of the plane.

            At first it was a rough, tumbling fall, and Sam struggled to stay tight and flat, to position himself for the proper launch of his wings. G-forces pulled at his body as he fell, causing the blood in his brain to thump loudly, drowning out the sound of the howling winds. He flung out his arms, pushing against the whistling air rushing up to meet him. Below him, the snowy mountains opened up to a rolling white expanse, bathed in a glowing reflection from the setting moon.

            He activated the wings, and swooped gracefully out of his dive, arcing high in the air. Already far ahead of him, he caught sight of Rhodey, blasting through the nighttime air with obvious purpose. Sam followed.

            They spent the first few minutes moving economically, blasting through the few miles out to Tony’s lodge. As they approached the location, Rhodey slowed slightly, sticking closer to the ground, skimming along the snow. Protected by a high peak looming above them, which blocked the worst of the buffeting wind, Sam spoke into his commlink.

            “How’s it feel, being back in the air?” he asked, his voice raised to be heard above the rushing air as they flew. The image of Rhodey free-falling a thousand feel still haunted Sam, like a ghost of a memory he’d buried long ago. Following closely behind the War Machine, every time Rhodey’s suit hit an air pocket and bucked slightly, Sam’s stomach lurched. “Little nerve-wracking, huh?”

            “Little bit,” answered Rhodey, his voice clear in Sam’s ear.  “But I’ve been in crashes before, and if I keep hanging out with the Super-Friends, chances are I’ll be in a crash again. You get up. You get back out there.”

            Sam didn’t reply to this.

            After Riley got hit, Sam had disobeyed direct orders, flown back into enemy airspace, and thrown himself at the ground. He’d retracted his wings, falling as fast as a bullet to reach Riley’s body before it hit the earth. He’d been about a hundred yards too slow.

            Sam was a soldier, and he’d seen enough of war to know that there was no way a human body could survive collision with an RPG, not with the near-nonexistent armor of the EXO-7 suit. The second that shot lit Riley up, and Sam’s comm went static in his ear, Sam had known his wingman was dead. But he thought he’d be able to get the body. He thought he’d be able to bring him home.

            By the time Riley’s body hit the ground, Sam already knew he couldn’t do it. The airspace was still hot, and he’d narrowly avoided three missiles already. Besides, after that impact, there wasn’t much of a body left to collect.

            Citing grief and psychological trauma, the U.S. military had granted him bereavement leave. He stayed at his mom’s place in D.C. She and two of his sisters went with him to Riley’s funeral in Connecticut, where they buried an empty casket. Sam was a pallbearer.

            It wasn’t until his leave was due to end that he got news he wasn’t going back. When pressed, they told him that the EXO-7 Falcon program had been discontinued, and they had no need for a pilot of his skills anymore. When pressed again, they’d threatened court-martial for his direct disobedience after Riley had been hit, and he didn’t have a lawyer and he was by federal law forbidden to leak anything about the nature of his confidential missions to the press, so instead he spent a couple years doing his best to do something, and somewhere along the way, it started to get easier.

            There had been an old cartoon which used to play on Saturday mornings when Sam was a kid, and it was about Captain America fighting bad guys and saving the day and teaching kids the importance of fairness, kindness, and justice. Riley used to hum the theme song on long rides, before they got up in the air. Riley had died two years before news broke of Cap’s return. Sam wondered sometimes what Riley would think, if he could see him now.

            Finally, they reached a massive wooden home: big and old-fashioned, with no visible see-through glass panes or high-tech garages, it didn’t look like something Tony Stark would ever have had any interest in. Sam was half a minute behind Rhodey. When he made it to the front porch, Rhodey, his mask up to reveal his face, was fiddling at the door with a key Pepper had provided.

            Sam tried very hard not to roll his eyes. “Can we just break a window, or something?”

            “This place belongs to Tony,” replied Rhodey, without looking up. “I’d rather not risk tripping whatever advanced A.I. security he’s no doubt set up in here.”

            Begrudgingly, Sam figured this made a little sense. The key worked, and they both entered the big house. Rhodey’s strides were a little too long, a little too unbalanced. While Rhodey disabled an alarm using a code he didn’t even have to think twice about, Sam slowly headed into the place. Lights turned on as he entered each new room, most of which had a fireplace or two, decorative bear pelts lain out on the floor, vintage art on the walls. Dust lined everything, everywhere. “Tony owns this place?” called Sam, gazing around the big foyer and at the beautiful stairs leading up to a landing which hung over the room like a loft.

            “Yeah,” answered Rhodey. He appeared down the hallway, the movement of his walk still awfully artificial. “It’s been empty for a while, though. Last time Tony was here was probably back in college, he threw a helluva house party one winter break.” He gave a little half-smile, his eyes taking in the surroundings, projecting memories into the space. “But I don’t think he’s been back since his parents died.”

            “That’s a crime,” said Sam, shaking his head. “Goddamn crime to leave a place like this empty.”

            “Well,” sighed Rhodey, “when we find him, you can let him know.”

            “I’m just saying. We need a new Avengers HQ, not a bad idea to stick it right here.”

            “A hundred-acre compound in upstate New York not good enough for you?”

            “Uh, according to Tony, me and _my_ team aren’t good enough for _it_. We’re still technically on the run from the law, in case you forgot.”

            There was a silence heavy with Rhodey’s stewing. “I haven’t forgotten,” he said.

            He took an unsteady step forward; the suit overshot slightly, and he lost his balance, tipping forward. Before he fell, Sam immediately shot out to get beneath him, pushing up, keeping him on his feet.

            “This stuff sucks, man,” said Sam, keeping one hand steadily on the front of the armor as Rhodey gained control of the suit again.

            “Yeah,” muttered Rhodey, without looking Sam in the eye. “No shit.”

            There was an awkward sort of pause, and then Sam took his hands away from the suit, and headed back into the house. “Your sensors picking anything up?” he asked.

            “No.”

            “Me neither.” He headed up the stairs. “Let’s sweep it quick and get out of here. Somehow I’m getting the feeling Tony hasn’t been here since the eighties.”

            “I think it was 1990,” replied Rhodey, raising his voice as he searched, opening closets, rifling through belongings. “Maybe ’91. No, wait, definitely not ’91. Actually,” he said, with more certainty, “I guess it was ’88. I remember, ‘cause Tony was eighteen that year.”

            From the balcony upstairs, Sam let out a bray of laughter. “Oh, I gotta know why you remember _that_ , Rhodes.”

            Despite the fact that Sam couldn’t see him, Rhodey made a face, gesturing as if to wave the implications of Sam’s statement away. “Tony was a rich kid,” he answered, his voice loud enough to carry through the open floor plan of the house. “And lonely, too, which isn’t a great combination. Made him really easy to take advantage of. Somebody had to look out for him.”

            “And that somebody had to be you?”

            “It just kind of happened,” replied Rhodey, frowning as he walked through the dining room, looking out a huge front window at the winter expanse outside. “I was a T.A. for one of his undergrad classes, and he schooled me in front of the whole class. Thought he’d be a dick about it,” he said mildly, dragging his metal-encased fingers through a thick layer of dust, “but he just invited me to a party afterwards.”

            “Oh, okay,” called Sam, his voice slightly muffled from upstairs. “I get it. Hot for teacher, huh?”

            Knowing Sam couldn’t see him, Rhodey allowed himself a small, wry smile. “You know,” he said, hearing Sam coming back down the stairs, “for some reason we get that a lot, actually.”

            Sam appeared, shaking his head. “There’s nothing here I can find,” he said. “Let’s just head back out. It’d be good to have two extra pairs of eyes in the air.”

            Briefly, they finished up looking around the ground floor, then Rhodey did a quick scan for a basement or secret rooms, and found none. Still scanning, just in case, Rhodey followed Sam back out of the house. Outside, dawn was beginning to break along the frozen horizon, although the light was still mostly hidden from them, in the shadow of the high peak above.

            A few hundred yards away, evergreens rose out of the snow. The arbitrary limits of the forest made the whole forest look nervous, as if the trees were too frightened to approach any closer. Rhodey locked the door behind them, then stood out on the porch as Sam relayed information back to Steve and Natasha.

            There was a gentle _ping_ inside his suit as a sensor went off.

            Rhodey stopped, then frowned. He looked back at the house, holding out one hand to activate the scanners. There was silence.

            He turned back around towards the forest. Again, a _ping_ , this time accompanied by the suit’s cameras focusing in on something near the tree line. “Sam,” he said, without glancing back. “I’m getting a signal.”

            Dropping the line with Cap, Sam moved forward behind Rhodey. “What is it?”

            “Not sure exactly,” replied Rhodey, frowning at the suit’s display before his eyes. “Inorganic, low-tech. Hold on.”

            Rhodey trudged out into the perfect snow, away from the massive house. Cautiously, Sam covered him, scanning back and forth for any hostiles. “Don’t know,” he murmured, in response to Steve’s query on his comm. “No, don’t double back. Nothing to worry about.”

            A ways away, near the tree line, Rhodey frowned at something buried in the snow. He leaned down and picked it up, shaking snow off of the little object. He depressed a button near the bottom, and the little thing lit up, displaying a time several hours behind.

            Rhodey looked back at Sam by the house, and held up the small object.

            “It’s a phone,” he called.

            Soaring above the Rocky Mountains, Steve and Natasha peered at a grainy photo which Sam had sent to them. “That’s his,” confirmed Natasha, into the comm. “He wanted that stupid color for some reason.”

            Steve, who had been over this with Bucky, added, “In his defense you did say _rose_ , and roses are red and he likes red-”

            “That means he was here, right?” asked Rhodey, patched in to the line with all of them. They still stood outside the house, in the snow, Bucky’s phone in Sam’s hand. “Sam, this is a clue, this is our clue. He dropped this so we’d pick it up.”

            “It’s a shit clue,” responded Sam starkly, glancing around him. “There’s nothing in this area for a couple miles in all directions. If this is supposed to lead us to them, I have no clue where it points.”

            “Maybe he left a message on the phone,” said Rhodey. “Said something about where he’s going.”

            “He can’t have done that,” replied Sam, jerking the phone away from Rhodey as he reached for it. “Did you not get the whole part about the failsafe death-brain conditioning?”

            “Why else would Barnes leave it?”

            “Rhodey’s got a point,” came Nat’s voice, over the comms. “We have to assume he dropped it for a reason, and there’s only one big reason I can think of right now. Maybe he found a way around the conditioning.”

            “Fine,” Sam grumbled, shooting a glare at Rhodey, and tugging off the gloves of his right hand. “World’s best super-assassin, and you think he’s gonna just leave a li’l note on his phone for us. Sure. That’s likely.”

            He swiped to open the phone, and a key pad showed up. Sam stared at it for a second, then a brick dropped into his stomach.

            “Steve,” he added, his voice much stronger now, “you know his passcode?”

            “His what?”

            “His passcode, his iPhone passcode. Come on.”

            “What? No, I don’t know it.”

            “Natasha?”

            Grimly, she answered, “He never told me.” She glanced sidelong at Steve. “Any ideas?”

            Steve considered this for a moment, taking a long breath. Then he said, “Try 12786. That was the code for the compound in Siberia.”

            “That’s too short,” said Rhodey, before Sam could say anything. Sam cast a glare at Rhodey, who was leaning tightly in over his shoulder, and Rhodey added, “It’s a six-digit code.”

            “Six digits?” echoed Steve.

            “A date, how ‘bout a date,” said Sam. Recalling sitting in the compound some months ago as the Winter Soldier tried to figure out his new phone, Sam continued, “Birthday! We’ll start there. Steve?”

            “March,” said Steve, without hesitation. “March tenth 1917. Or sixteen,” he added, “according to the Smithsonian, anyway.”

            “Sixteen?” echoed Sam. “Sixteen or seventeen?”

            “Steve,” said Natasha, with a note of urgency.

            “Seventeen. That’s what he’d put.”

            Sam punched in the number, but the keypad just shook sadly, refusing him entrance. “That didn’t work,” he said. An idea struck him and he asked, “Hold on, Steve, how ‘bout you? You 1916 or seventeen?”

            “Eighteen,” replied Steve. “July fourth, 1918.”

            “The Fourth of July?” echoed Rhodey skeptically. “Jesus. No wonder they made him Captain America.”

            “Didn’t work,” said Sam, worry entering his voice. “Fucking high-security tech, I’ve only got three tries left-”

            “Try 125570,” suggested Steve. “First six digits of his serial number.”

            Once more, Sam punched the numbers in, and once again, it didn’t work. “Steve,” he said, raising his voice, “that didn’t work-”

            “082795,” said Natasha.

            In the jet, Steve turned around to look at her, a frown on her face. She would not return his gaze. Outside, the early dawn light reflecting crystalline sparkles across the snow, Sam and Rhodey exchanged a glance of surprise. “What’s that?” asked Sam.

            “It’s a date,” answered Natasha shortly. “Try it.”

            Steve, who had been suspecting for some time that there was some history between Bucky and Nat that he did not understand, just watched her with confusion written across his brow. He wasn’t really sure what he had been expecting, for all those murmured conversations in Russian, for all the ways Natasha seemed to keep positioning herself protectively around Bucky, or for the way she called him _James_.

            But no matter what he’d thought, he hadn’t been expecting the twenty-seventh of August, 1995. Steve had seen profiles of the rest of the team, and he knew when she was born. From what small interactions he had witnessed between them so far, Steve would not have assumed that the Black Widow’s first meeting with the Winter Soldier happened when she was ten years old.

            On the line, Sam seemed hesitant. “Steve?”

            It was then that Natasha finally looked up at him. She did not look happy, and Steve wondered how much of that was her fear for Bucky, and how much of it was her dislike of ever permitting anyone to know anything about her which was not absolutely necessary.

            Still. Steve trusted her.

            “Try it,” said Steve.

            Sam did so. Natasha closed her eyes, something like pain entering her expression. Thumbing the comm silent, Steve reached out, curling his fingers around her hand. “Hey,” he murmured. When she glanced at him, it was with more emotion than he was used to seeing from her, but she did not return his touch.

            “Didn’t work,” said Sam. Urgently, he said, “Come on, now, I got one more try and then this shit locks-”

            His comm still muted, Steve asked Natasha, “You could get in, right?”

            Natasha shook her head, the pained look slipping off of her face, a spy’s professional veneer returning. “These are our secure communication devices,” she told him. “I deliberately set them up so even I couldn’t get in.”

            Steve cursed, then turned his comm back on. “Alright,” he said. “Bucky wouldn’t have left this if he didn’t think we could figure it out. So, come on. What are we missing?”

            “Maybe it’s part of a phone number,” added Natasha. “Or an old address. I don’t think it has anything to do with HYDRA – none of us would be able to guess that.” Even as she said that, Steve cast her a doubtful look, which she ignored.

            “Or it could spell out a word,” offered Rhodey. “What about those trigger words?”

            “Those are in Russian,” said Sam, shooting a derisive look his way.

            “I mean the translations.”

            Quickly, Steve went through the ten words, counting letters in his head. “Only _rusted_ and _benign_ would work.”

            Natasha shook her head. “There’s more than one translation for both of those words. And they don’t really _mean_ anything. If I were him, I would’ve picked something meaningful, something only we would know.”

            On the commlink, Sam said, “Look, I still think it’s a date. I was right there when he was setting it up, I told him to use his birthday. And if he didn’t use his own and he didn’t use yours, Steve, who’s next? Maybe his mom? What’s his mom’s birthday?”

            “I don’t know his mother’s birthday,” protested Steve. “He’s my best friend, not my brother, I had a mother of my own-”

            “God dammit, alright, somebody Google Bucky Barnes’s mom’s birthday-”

            “Steve,” said Natasha. “Is there anyone else?”

            Steve opened his mouth to reply angrily that he didn’t keep a goddamn record of everyone Bucky had ever cared about, and then he stopped short. The penny dropped. He lifted one hand to the bridge of his nose, thinking hard.

            “September twenty-second,” he said slowly, “Nineteen…twenty? No. Nineteen.”

            “Nineteen?”

            “Nineteen-nineteen,” confirmed Steve. “092219.”

            “Steve,” said Sam, on the comm, “are you _sure_?”

            “I’m sure.”

            “We don’t really got the time to mess up here.”

            “I’m sure,” repeated Steve firmly.

            Sam hesitated. Then he took a deep breath and murmured, “Okay,” and punched six digits into the keypad.

            In the jet, Steve and Natasha held their breath.

            It broke at Sam’s voice.

            “That worked!” he said, the excitement clear in his voice. “I’m in!”

            Without letting out a sigh of relief, Natasha reached out a fist, which Steve graciously bumped. “Nice work, Rogers,” she said. “What was that?”

            “His sister’s birthday,” answered Steve, although the troubled look had not yet lifted from his face. “Rebecca. It was one of the few things he remembered about her.”

            Natasha’s gaze softened. She reached out and touched his face, a rare gesture of affection. “It’s pretty sweet that you remember it, too.”

            Steve allowed her this touch, but he didn’t seem as relieved as she felt.

            He glanced up at Natasha. “I’ve been to her grave,” he said, quietly, as if a confession.

            She felt a pang in her heart for him, but had no time to indulge it; Sam spoke over the comm. “Okay, okay…looks like there’s a tracking app in here, zeroed in on our location, says it’s got a range of twenty miles…”

            Natasha took her hand away from Steve and glanced at their location; they were already over twenty miles out from Tony’s house, so she gestured for Steve to turn them around, which he did. “You got a trace on him?”

            There was a beat of silence on the line, and then Sam said, “…No. I got nothing. If the kid’s got a tracer on him, it’s either not activated or he’s out of range.”

            “ _Damn_ it,” cursed Steve, slamming his hands against the controls.

            “But now we’ve got a definite location,” said Rhodey. “Twenty mile-radius means he didn’t expect to get too far. If there’s a safehouse, it’s around here somewhere.”

            Steve set his jaw, piloting the jet in a tight loop, heading back to where Sam and Rhodey waited. “You two start looking,” said Natasha, on the comm. “We’ll rendezvous in ten.”

            “I hear you. Keep all your scanners going, alright?”

            “Of course.”

            “Falcon out.”

            The line closed, and Nat reached up, plucking the comm from her ear. She looked around at Steve, who said nothing, facing away from her, out the window port of the jet.

            “We’ll find him,” she said.

            Steve gave no indication he’d heard her at all.


	12. Chapter 12

            For some time, bathed in the harsh artificial lighting of the panic room, neither Bucky nor Tony said anything. The light had a way of casting deep shadows in their faces: Bucky thought Tony looked much older than he’d thought he was in this light, worn, and tired. Tony didn’t cast Bucky a look long enough to think the same, but if he had, it would’ve occurred to him that the fluorescent bulbs above them, which gave off a gently, steady buzz, threw Bucky’s expression into very unflattering relief. In this light, it was not at all difficult to believe that he was the animal HYDRA had trained him to be.

             Briefly, the buzzing was interrupted by a short scratching sound, faint enough that Bucky barely noticed it. His body felt heavy, his mind slow and lethargic. He knew that the air was running out, so he carefully measured his breath, restricting his air flow. Bucky did not know why, really: he had been in close proximity to corpses before, even during the war, and he knew that his enhanced physiology meant that he could probably last longer on less oxygen than the other man. But he did not want Tony to die first. He did not want to be left alone in this panic room with a cooling body. Even the dense sympathy, the mercy building in his body ever since he broke free of HYDRA’s conditioning could not change that – he didn’t care if he left Tony to suffer alone. If both of them were dying tonight, Bucky thought, he wanted to go first.

            The scratching sound came again, slightly louder now. “Hey,” he grunted, across the room. “Cut it out.”

            Tony didn’t lift his head, but his eyes fluttered open and he looked up at Bucky. “Cut what out?”

             _Scritch-scritch-scritch_. “Whatever you’re doing,” answered Bucky. “It’s annoying.”

            For a second, Tony didn’t reply. Then he asked, “Breathing? Are you telling me to quit breathing, is that really what’s happening right now-?”

            “ _No_ ,” said Bucky, impatiently. “That noise you’re making it, it’s driving me-”

            Bucky cut off suddenly, stopped short. When he said nothing for another moment, staring at Tony, Tony frowned and began, “Are you hearing things now? Because that, I mean, not gonna lie, that kind of freaks me out-”

            “ _Shh_.” Bucky held up one finger to silence Tony, slowly pulling himself up to a crouch. Even from across the room, Tony could see Bucky’s eyes go wide, his pupils dilating suddenly with focus.

            “What?” asked Tony tensely, leaning forward. “What’s going on?”

            Bucky rocked to his feet, ignoring Tony. His gaze slipped upwards; he strained his neck, lost in focus. He glanced back down at Tony, then pointed at the ceiling.

            “Do you hear that?” he murmured.

            “Hear _what?_ ”

            “Someone’s up there,” declared Bucky, moving quickly to press his hand and ear against the metal wall, still focused intently. “Sounds like they’re removing the rubble. Trying to get to us.”

            The expression on Tony’s face pulsed with relief. “Hey,” he said, holding up the little tracker with obvious excitement. “Your thing worked! Cap found us!”

            “No,” replied Bucky flatly, without looking around. “That tracker is way too weak to transmit a single this far underground.”

            “Maybe – he followed you here?”

            “I’m too good for that,” murmured Bucky. He pulled away from the wall, looking up at the ceiling, lost in thought. “If they’d followed me, I’d’ve known, and it would’ve killed me. Besides,” he added, glancing around at Tony, “Whatever’s happening up there, it’s more complicated than digging out rocks, and it’s way more finessed than anything that other Iron Man could do.”

            “War Machine,” said Tony, defensively. “His name is War Machine.”

            Bucky looked slightly irritated, but clearly didn't understand. “His name is Rhodey.”

            “No, I know, but – I meant, like, his…superhero name.”

            “It’s not them,” said Bucky, shaking his head thoughtfully. He frowned back up at the ceiling, but Tony felt a sinking in his stomach, with a sense he knew where this was going. “Who else knows about this place?” asked Bucky.

            “Nobody,” replied Tony. “My dad did, but he’s been dead for-”

            He cut off abruptly, knowing he didn’t need to tell Bucky how long Howard Stark had been dead. The Winter Soldier knew.

            Despite the calm, pensive look on Bucky’s face as he reached out and touched the wall once more, as if trying to sense the vibrations of the dirty far above, Tony’s stomach clenched. He felt unwell. If it was not Steve and the others, then there was someone else out there currently looking for Iron Man as well.

            Bucky too must have come to this inevitable conclusion. “What did the assassin want?” he asked abruptly, turning around to face Tony.

            “I don’t know,” replied Tony immediately, still seated against the wall. “To kill me?”

            “No,” said Bucky. He held out his one arm, gesturing at the space around them. “Right now, Tony, you’re dead. If his mission was to take you out, then you already did it for him.” He paused, regarding Tony thoughtfully. “You have something he needs.”

            “Man, I don’t know, okay? He showed up and tried to shoot me, I didn’t really have the time for my usual witty repartee-”

            Bucky dropped into a crouch before Tony, speaking with exceptional calm. “Think back,” he said. “Did he ask you anything? Is there some kind of secret program they might need your intel for?”

            “Who is _they_?”

            “Bad guys, Tony,” said Bucky, obviously repressing a roll of his eyes. “Evil at large. HYDRA, probably. Is there anything, some kinds of weapons development they might want-?”

            Despite the situation, Tony’s face turned red at this, indignant, and he spat, “I don’t _make_ weapons anymore-”

            “Okay, okay,” said Bucky loudly, holding up a hand to silence Tony; Bucky had slowly been migrating across the room, and they were very close to each other now. Tony thought vaguely that, if Bucky were Steve, Tony would think he was doing this protectively, as if to shield him against whatever was trying to break its way into the panic room. But this was not Captain America, this was his polar opposite, his mirror image – and as Bucky adjusted his stance, kneeling before him imposingly, Tony figured this, this _had_ to be about intimidation. And, he thought to himself bitterly, damn it, it was working.

            Voice low, Bucky gestured at the suit. “Turn the air back on.”

            This took Tony by surprise, who gaped up at him. “I can’t,” he shot back. “You told me I should disable it, so I did. Emergency override.”

            “Well – emergency override it again!”

            “What the hell do you think emergency override _means_?”

            “I am not _dying_ ,” said Bucky, his voice echoing in the little room; he reached out to bang Tony’s metal-encased shoulder against the wall, then removed his hand to point upwards, “before _that asshole_ makes it down here to kill me.”

            “Oh, sure,” Tony replied scathingly, pushing Bucky away to struggle to get to his feet in the bulky suit, “big talk for the guy who told me to shut off the goddamn air in the first place-”

            A glint of animalistic fury flickered through Bucky’s eyes, and he grabbed the collar of the suit and slammed Tony back down to the ground. A trickle of fear leaked onto Tony’s face as he glanced Bucky up and down, as if only just realizing who Bucky was, and what he was capable of. Scowling, Bucky held out one finger, either to silence Tony, or accuse him.

            “I am not letting some HYDRA son of a bitch end me,” he said lowly, his voice in complete control. He might have sounded calm, had he not also sounded infinitely more dangerous. “Not after everything I did to get away from them. And listen to me, Stark,” he continued, leaning in and dropping his voice even further. “If he can get in,” Bucky began, his voice so quiet as to hover just below a whisper, “then that means we can get out. And that means we _are_ gonna get out, and we’re gonna make it. And we’re gonna do whatever-the-fuck that may take, because Steve is out there looking for both of us, and he’s not losing me again.”

            There was a moment’s tension, and then he let go of Tony and got to his feet.

            “We’re not gonna die here,” muttered Bucky, his eyes fixed on the ceiling above them. “Listen. If the assassin is after something you know, then we have the upper hand.”

            “Really?” asked Tony dryly. “How do you figure that one?”

            “Because he needs you alive. So we have a bargaining chip.”

            Tony grimaced to himself. “Me.”

            “You,” replied Bucky, nodding. “I put a gun to your head, he slows down just enough for us to get a foot in the door.”

            “Oh, sure, what door?”

            Again, Bucky pointed at the ceiling. “If he can get in, we can get out,” he repeated. “Now.” He brought his hand down, and glanced around, a frown digging into his brow. “There’s just one problem with that.”

            “Okay,” said Tony, deciding, at this point, to take whatever he could in stride. “What’s the big problem?”

            Bucky said nothing for a moment. Tony thought he almost seemed reluctant to admit whatever it was, and felt an odd, strange pang of fear.

            “I don’t have a gun,” said Bucky.

            Tony stared at him. “What?” he asked delicately, hollowly.

            Bucky patted himself down, then removed the single metal ball from his belt. “I have one explosive,” he said grimly. “One shot at this.”

            In disbelief, Tony stared up at the man. “Why don’t you have any _weapons_?” he demanded. “You were an assassin, weren’t you? Guns are, like, your whole _thing_ -”

            With only a little bit of darkness, Bucky shot back, “Your girlfriend made me drop them all before she let me into your place. I didn’t have time to pick them all up again, not without them noticing.” Although he didn’t say this, he had also thought that some of his weapons might have had tracking devices hidden in them, although he didn’t know which. Unsure his head could handle it, he had decided instead not to risk it at all.

            It took a second for Bucky to realize Tony had dropped his face into his hand. With an intense flash of discomfort, Bucky thought for one second the man might burst into tears – but then he realized his shoulders were shaking laughter.

            “I always told her that was a stupid rule,” Tony sighed, running one hand through his hair. “No guns, but about twenty different weaponized suits of armor. Think that was her trying.” The laughter died on his face, transmuting into an unhappy grin like a rigor mortis. “I should’ve tried harder,” he mumbled.

            At first Bucky just regarded him blankly, unsure. Something felt some way, inside of him, beneath his chest, although he couldn’t quite name it. It was a little bit sadness, but also a hint of contempt. It was the unenthusiastic knowledge that Tony had dug himself into this grave, and that it was Bucky’s job to drag him out of it.

            The word came like a wisp to the tip of Bucky’s tongue. _Pity_ , he thought, watching the other man. It was not an emotion the Winter Soldier had ever had to feel.

            But then Tony looked up, something new and determined in his eyes. “That’s okay,” he said. “I have enough power left for one big blast.”

            “No,” said Bucky, shaking his head. “Whatever you have, don’t blow it on the assassin.”

            Tony’s eyes bulged slightly. “Um, I don’t know if you figured this out yet there, buddy, but if we’re gonna get out alive, Léon the Professional up there _isn’t_.”

            “I can kill him,” said Bucky.

            “You don’t have any guns-”

            “I’m the best assassin in history, Tony,” Bucky shot back smoothly, “you don’t think I can kill a man without shooting a bullet?”

            “You couldn’t kill me,” Tony pointed out.

            “I _didn’t_ kill you,” replied Bucky. “There’s a difference.”

            “Why not?” asked Tony, and he spread out his arms. There was some measure of determination on his face, now that they weren’t going down together, now that there was a chance of getting out. Bucky got the sense that this had been weighing on him for some time, and Tony was no longer trying to bury it. Instead, he was finally setting his cards out on the table. “Why didn’t you kill me, Barnes? If you could’a done it, why didn’tchya do it?”

            Bucky didn’t answer. He just watched Tony.

            “Why?” repeated Tony. “You know what, I’m down, I’m cool with you, I’ve already established that much, haven’t I? Just tell me, then. Just tell me. Why didn’t you kill me in Siberia?”

            “Because,” said Bucky.

            “Because why?” Bucky didn’t answer. Tony ducked his head slightly, catching Bucky’s eye. “Because Steve was there? And you didn’t want your old pal to see you go all Winter Soldier on my ass?”

            “That’s not it,” said Bucky quietly.

            “Then _why_?”

            “ _Because_ ,” replied Bucky, his voice loud and ringing in the little room. For a moment he looked like he was going to explode at Tony, and then he stopped himself, closing his mouth, closing his eyes, and clenching his fist.

            After a beat’s pause, he opened his eyes tiredly, and looked down at Tony.

            “I don’t understand,” he began, through gritted teeth, “why you need a goddamn explanation. You’re a superhero, aren’t you? Why _wouldn’t_ you kill somebody? Because they got a girlfriend, or a wife, maybe,” he held up his one hand, counting off the reasons on his fingers, “or because there’s somebody out there who’s gonna cry over their corpse, no matter who,” he raised another finger, “or because they’re not a bad person,” another, “or they don’t deserve it,” a fourth, “or maybe because they’re a _goddamn_ human being and after everything those HYDRA bastards made me do, I’m done. I’m done killing just to see somebody dead.” He held his five fingers extended for a moment, then dropped them. “You know what else?” he asked. “I don’t see the point in killing somebody when they’re goddamn right. I know what I am and I know what they turned me into. Maybe the world would’ve been a safer place if you had killed me back in Siberia, maybe, I don’t know.” He regarded Tony warily, winding down. “But Steve was there,” he said. “And I wasn’t about to let him watch me die. Not again.”

            Tony didn’t say anything at first. Then he glanced away, unhappy. “That’s a shitty reason,” he muttered.

            “It was better than yours,” Bucky shot back. “All those secrets released after S.H.I.E.L.D. fell and not one of them told you anything about your father’s death? What did you _think_ happened, Tony? You thought he just rammed into that tree just because? Why did it take you until _right_ then to figure that one out?”

            This pierced Tony deeply, scraping against his heart. He’d spent twenty-five years trying to answer this question, and maybe Bucky was right: he had always looked inward, never outward. Two decades ago he’d figured his father was drunk, and that recklessness had gotten himself and his wife killed. That was around the time he hired Happy – as a driver, at first – mostly, if he was honest with himself, because he swore to himself angrily that he was never going to ruin himself like his father had.

            But Tony wouldn’t be Tony if he allowed himself to be judged so quickly. “Steve never told me,” he shot back. “He had every opportunity-”

            At this, Bucky let out an actual laugh. “How were you ever going to find out?” he asked. “If you didn’t know by then, you were never going to know. Listen, Steve didn’t keep this from you out of malice, he did it out of mercy. For you and himself. Howard was his friend too,” said Bucky, flatly. “Steve wasn’t trying to hurt you, Tony. Believe me. He wasn’t thinking of you at all.”

            _That doesn’t make it better_ , Tony wanted to say, but he didn’t.

            There was a long pause. Above them, the sounds of rocks and rubble being removed became more audible.

            “Okay,” said Bucky, obviously restarting. “Okay. One thing still doesn’t make sense. The assassin shot at you, right?”

            Still processing what had just happened, Tony blinked, then nodded.

            “Why?” asked Bucky, with a frown carved deeply into his brow. “If you know something he needed, why would he try to kill you? And if whatever he’s looking for isn’t in your head, then why would he still be looking for you? You’re practically dead down here already. It doesn’t make sense.”

            Bucky stopped, considering this. If he were in this assassin’s situation, he would’ve considered the job done already. The only reason he would need to continue to pursue the target would be if the target had something with him, something that HYDRA needed, but did not need him alive to extract.

            Something bloomed in Bucky’s mind as it hit him, and he looked down at Tony, eyes flickering down his body.

            Again, he dropped to his knees before Tony, but this time he put on the suit, as if searching for something. “Woah, woah, woah,” began Tony, twisting away from him, “bro, use your words, use your words-!”

            “This armor,” said Bucky, still searching carefully for something. “Is it special? Does it do anything the others don’t?”

            Tony swiped at Bucky’s hand, which worked around the suit methodically. “No,” he said shortly. “This one is barely even weaponized, it’s meant for-” he hesitated, “-home use.”

            If Bucky detected the hint of shame there, he didn’t acknowledge it. “What _does_ it do, then?”

            A look of insulted defiance eked onto Tony’s face. “It’s got four different phone lines wired into the helmet. Advanced body cooling tech and wiring straight to the brain – practice for Rhodey’s suit – and,” he lifted his arm to gesture to where he had disabled the air filtration system, “general life support, and it’s got an internal projection device capable of capturing and projecting B.A.R.F. memories into a non-prepped space of up to fifty square feet.”

            Confused, Bucky frowned. “B.A.R.F.?”

            Rubbing aggressively at his eye under the tinted glasses, Tony explained, “Yeah, it’s – it’s a bad acronym, joke gone out of control, never got around to renaming it. Binarily Augmented Retro Framing.” Finally, he removed the glasses from his face, holding it up. “Plugs in to the hippocampus, long story short, it allows you to relive a traumatic memory and revise it as necessary to cope with your current much older, still just as traumatized ass.”

            For a long, long moment, Bucky said nothing, gaping at Tony.

            Then he reached out and took hold of the glasses tightly. He tried to tug them away from Tony, but Tony held on, refusing to let them go.

            “This is a mind control device,” said Bucky, clutching the glasses, and Tony’s hand, tightly.

            “ _What_?” asked Tony; whatever he had been expecting, this was not it. “What are you talking about, all it does is help you process an alternate reality, it’s a recovery tool-”

            “It’s a _tool_ ,” began Bucky, and there was a spark of anger in his eyes, “that alters memories, changes your decisions, changes events. Replaces things that happened with things somebody thinks _should_ have happened, and _that_ ,” said Bucky, squeezing the glasses, “is called _brainwashing_.”

            “It’s called therapy,” shot back Tony. “Not surprised you’ve never heard of that, Barnes, but this thing plugs into the _user’s_ brain, your head is in complete control the whole time-”

            “And what happens when that head has already been hijacked by HYDRA?” demanded Bucky. “Hell, Tony, _really_? You put that on and you come back up with different memories? They could change who you are without any goddamn conditioning. If that thing ever got weaponized, they could damn well stick it on Steve’s head, change _one_ thing, and he could come up thinking he was a Nazi!”

            “It’s _not_ a weapon,” insisted Tony.

            “ _Tony_ -”

            Bucky got up on his knees, scrubbing at his face with one hand. He didn’t say anything for a minute, and then he took his hand away, leaning it on his knee as he sat before Tony.

            “Everything,” he said, the word profoundly heavy in Bucky’s mouth, “is a weapon. Nothing is safe. You are never not guilty, Tony, none of us have that luxury, not me, not Steve, not you. That’s part of the job, yours and mine. The question isn’t how to quit killing, it’s how to live with it.”

            Tony and Bucky sat and watched each other. Bucky looked very tired. His breaths came very shallowly; in a vague, out-of-body sort of way, Tony wondered if he was already feeling the fatigue from a lack of oxygen.

            But Bucky’s words made him feel guilty and angry, and Tony had been guilty and angry almost his entire life, and, imminent death or not, he was not about to let himself be pushed around.

            “Yeah, well,” said Tony, bitingly, with intent to injure. “An international ex-assassin would say that, wouldn’t he?”

            When Bucky looked up again, there was something that could’ve been disappointment in his eye. “Yeah,” he replied, with a very sweet hint of venom. “An international ex-assassin who carried weapons designed by Stark Industries for years and years sure would say that. I’m not saying I’m better than you, Tony. All I’m saying is that I can tell you how many people I’ve killed. I remember all their faces. Even back in the war, I was a sniper – and you get intimate with the people you kill that way, right before you blow their head off. I know how many people I’ve killed, Tony,” he repeated, his gaze boring into Tony’s face, demanding Tony’s attention. “Do you?”

            As Bucky had anticipated, Tony had no reply to this.

            Silently, Bucky got to his feet.

            “I don’t believe anyone wakes up in the morning with the intent to do evil,” he said, simply. “I just think everyone believes in their own personal brand of good.”

            “Tell that to HYDRA,” said Tony, bitterly.

            Bucky held out his arm. “I’m about to,” he said. “Thanks to you."

            “I never asked you to come looking for me.”

            “No,” agreed Bucky, tiredly. He glanced at Tony. “Steve did.”

            In the bright artificial light, with the first pains of suffocation squeezing in his chest, Bucky looked up at the ceiling above them. There was a faint pain along the edges of his artificial arm, where metal melted into flesh. He supposed there was always pain there, but it took him slight disorientation and a lack of oxygen to even notice it anymore.

            A loud clanging rang out from the ceiling above them. Bucky dropped into a combat-ready crouch, and then glanced at the man before them. Tony’s eyes were focused on the ceiling as well.

            When Bucky caught his gaze, he set his expression with determination, and gave Bucky a steely nod.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoo hoo hoo! Sorry this chapter's late. Happy October!


	13. Chapter 13

            Above them, soft footsteps came from the metal ceiling; someone moved, then stopped, then moved again. Whoever it was, he obviously did not care if the two men trapped below heard him.

            Silently, Bucky went to Tony’s side, tugging him up to his feet by the shoulder of the suit. “Can you put your helmet back on?” he asked, quietly.

            “No,” answered Tony, eyes wide in fear. “It broke when I tore it off-” Bucky gave him another one of those very pointed looks, and, defensively, Tony added, “I didn’t exactly think I was gonna need it anymore-”

            “Alright,” said Bucky. “We’ll improvise. Put these back on,” he said, touching the glasses in Tony’s hand.  When it looked for a moment as if Tony were about to protest, Bucky shook his hand slightly and added, “He’s less likely to try a headshot if he thinks he might damage them. These things might be the only thing between you and a bullet.”

            “I thought _you_ were the only thing between me and a bullet-”

            Ignoring this, Bucky moved behind Tony, who began, “Woah, woah, hold on-” and threw his arms out as Bucky laced his arm around Tony’s neck, pushing Tony’s chin up to press against his unarmored throat.

            “Don’t struggle,” whispered Bucky, into Tony’s ear; when Tony did not immediately cooperate, he punctuated this with a kick on the inside of Tony’s left knee, which, had he not been wearing the armor, likely would’ve snapped it in half. As it was he almost buckled to the ground, but Bucky brought him back up, hanging on to him tightly. “Let me talk to him first. Maybe we can strike a deal.”

            Tony’s heart leapt into his throat. “Okay, can we just – before we go on, is there any way you could definitely for sure just confirm for me that said deal _doesn’t_ involve handing me over to the HYDRA assassin-”

            Once more, someone stomped loudly across the ceiling above them.

            “Don’t do anything,” Bucky whispered. “I have a plan.”

            “Um,” said Tony, as someone stopped at the trap door above them, “I’m not sure I like this plan, to be honest. No, yeah, definitely,” he continued, as the trap door disappeared up into darkness, wrenched off its hinges, “definitely do not like this plan!”

            And then, just like that, a tall, lithe man dropped into the panic room. He was smaller than Bucky, and definitely younger than Tony, with hair cut military-short and a beard that almost obscured his mouth, except he was smiling at them – beaming, really, sickly sweet.

            “Ah,” he said, without lowering his weapon, “ _Soldat_.”

            Tony tried to glance at Bucky’s face behind him, but couldn’t turn enough. “You know this guy?”

            Bucky adjusted his grip on Tony’s throat. “Yeah,” he growled, “I know this fucker.”

            He said something to the assassin in Russian. Tony caught a familiar string of very explicit curse words.

            The assassin laughed, then lowered his weapon and gestured around them. Still in Russian, he replied; Bucky’s only response was to spit at the ground over Tony’s shoulder, landing at the assassin’s feet.

            The smile disappeared from the man’s face. Once more he held up his weapons. “The inventor, and the rogue soldier,” he said, with a heavy accent. “My officers will be very happy to hear I have taken care of both.”

            “Who are your officers?” shot back Tony, even as Bucky gave him a warning squeeze around his neck. “Who do you work for, HYDRA?”

            The assassin laughed. “HYDRA does not do so well anymore,” he replied, with a little shrug. “Not here in America, anyway, since your Captain rooted us out. But then again,” that grin returned, taunting them, “cut off one head, and two more will take its-”

             Without hesitation, Tony lifted a hand and fired a short bolt at the assassin, the strength of which lifted the assassin off his feet and threw him, hard, against the opposite wall. Behind Tony, Bucky squeezed tightly around his neck and hissed in his ear, “I said _don’t_ do anything!”

            “Yeah, I know,” replied Tony breathily, scrabbling at Bucky’s arm to get him to loosen his grip. “I just really hate Nazis.”

            Although Tony could not see his face, Bucky could barely keep a small, wry smile from tugging at his lips.

            When the assassin got back to his feet, there was no trace of the smug smirk left on his face. He scowled at Tony.

            “I was going to give you chance,” he said shortly. “You give me what I want, you let me kill the Winter Soldier, and I will let you on your way. But now,” he continued, dusting off his sleeves, “I will kill you both.”

            “You want the glasses?” asked Bucky cautiously, keeping his head half-hidden behind Tony’s. “The brainwashing technology?”

            “Ah,” said the assassin mildly. “So the Soldier has it all figured out, hm? Well,” he smiled genially, “I am not here to chat. You do not need to know why I am here, _Soldat_ , only that when I am done, you will be dead.”

            “Don’t be so sure of that,” said Bucky, his voice hard. “You know exactly what I am, so you must know that you’re not making it out of here alive.”

            The assassin actually laughed. “ _Soldat_ ,” he said, almost apologetically. “If you had any intention to kill me, you would have killed me already.” He nodded at Tony, still held tightly before Bucky’s body. “But you hide behind the Iron Man instead, like your Captain’s shield.” The man gave a little shrug. “It is good tactic. But it is human shield, an assassin’s shield.” That evil grin returned, poisonously sweet. “Maybe the soldier is not as reformed as he wants to think. A weapon is a weapon, _Soldat_ ,” he said inconsequentially, holding his hands palms-up as if to say, _What can you do?_ “All it needs is someone to pull the trigger.”

            Bucky felt his heart slow, and it had nothing to do with the level of oxygen in the air.

            The assassin cocked his head, tapping his weapon, grinning.

            Then he said, “ _Zhelaniye_.”

            One arm still tightly holding Tony, Bucky went very still. Tony glanced at the assassin, confused, then slowly realized what was happening.

            “ _Rzhayyy_ ,” continued the man, eyes staring at Bucky intently. “ _Semnadtstat’. Rassvet_.”

            “No, no no no,” said Tony loudly, struggling in Bucky’s grip to try and look around at the man. “No! Barnes, come on, listen to me, block him out, no-”

            “ _Pech’_ ,” said the man, with one menacing step forward. “ _Devyat’_.”

            “ _No_!” shouted Tony. “No, _fuck_ -”

            “ _Dobroserdechnyy_.”

            “Doe-dobrosuh, ah, shit – Moscow! Dobriy den! Vodka!”

            “ _Vozvrashcheniye na rodinu_ ,” said the man, a wild grin on his face, watching Bucky with a sort of hunger in his eyes. “ _Odin_.”

            “Barnes,” said Tony loudly, struggling harder against Bucky’s tightening grip. Behind him, Bucky was making a slight noise, something long and drawn-out, like a whine. “Barnes, listen to me. Listen to me, you are not the Winter Soldier, your name is James Barnes, you’re not an assassin anymore -  _listen_ to me Barnes – you get me out of here, I swear, I will make you a _superhero_ , I’ll get right with the U.N. and everything-”

            “ _Gruzovoy vagon_ ,” finished the assassin.

            There was a silence. Tony closed his eyes tightly.

            So this was it. Dead, after all, at the hand of the Winter Soldier. To be fair, after what happened in Siberia it was probably one death he deserved. What happened to the calm of an hour ago, when he knew he was about to die and didn’t mind? When he practically welcomed it? What was the difference, really, between a slow suffocation, and being torn apart by the world’s greatest assassin? Pain, maybe – but Tony knew pain. He was intimately familiar with pain, and he thought this at the same time as he thought about Bucky, not the Winter Soldier, but Bucky; then he silently hated himself. He thought he knew pain. But this he knew for sure: he had no idea the kind of torture Bucky had survived.

            All of the sudden Tony realized he was still breathing, and he came back to the present all at once. He was hyper aware of Bucky’s arm around his throat, the heat of his body behind Tony’s, and the steady breath on his ear. And – Tony frowned – something else. Bucky’s whining was still going, low and quiet, like a hum. Tony could’ve sworn he recognized…

            “ _Soldat_ ,” said the assassin. “ _Ubey yego._ ”

            The moment’s pause lingered on, long enough that the assassin cocked his head, a frowning sense of alarm flickering across his face.

            And then Tony opened his eyes, sure he recognized the dissonant tune Bucky’s hum had somehow formed into. “Are you,” he began, sure he was losing his mind, or disassociating, or something; this could not possibly be happening, he could not possibly be hearing this, and he hoped he wasn’t already dead because an eternal afterlife stuck listening to this shit really would drive him crazy, “are you humming…Bonnie Tyler?”

            “It helps,” grunted Bucky, and then with a magnificent heave, he threw Tony aside so hard the suit’s collision with the steel wall clanged loudly, disrupting the silence in the little panic room, and Bucky launched himself at the assassin.

            “Oh my God,” said Tony, shaking in his suit. “I’m – okay – how can I help? – fuck – _turn around, bright eyes_ -”

            Before the assassin could react, Bucky threw himself onto the man, knocking him down to the ground; he expertly kicked at one of the man’s wrists, sending his weapon skidding across the floor and simultaneously breaking the joint. He jammed a knee down on his other elbow, crushing it, and landed a blow on the man’s face, then again, then again. When one arm moved halfheartedly, Bucky adjusted to hold it down with one heavy-booted foot, half-crouching over the man as he beat his face repeatedly, then jammed the heel of his hand up onto his face, sending his nose up into his brain.

            And then, suddenly, Bucky fell back, off of the man, his one bloodied hand still curled into a fist.

            Behind him, in shock and horror, Tony was still mumbling lyrics. “ _I – I need you here tonight… I need you more than ever_ …”

            Nothing happened. Then, razor-keen and dangerous, like peering out through the scope of a sniper rifle, Bucky’s gaze swiveled around, catching Tony. Tony flinched away.

            Bucky blinked uncertainly, one lid lagging slightly behind the other. “You can stop singing,” he said. He sounded tired. He wiped his face with the inside of his forearm, which left a little smear of blood on his forehead. “Sheesh, Sam is right. That song is really bad.”

            “Holy shit,” said Tony, his eyes fixed on the bloodied body before them.

            Bucky leaned back against the metal wall. He gestured to the dead assassin.

            “Told you I could do it,” he said.

            Tony’s breaths begun to come quicker, and he knew if his suit was working, this would be about the time that it would inform him he was about to have a panic attack, and it would recommend he close his eyes and take deep breaths – but his suit wasn’t working, and Bucky was busy wiping the blood off his hand and onto the wall.

            But: he was alive. And Bucky was alive too, and, miraculously, it looked like they were going to get out of here. Taking careful breaths at measured intervals, he forced himself to slowly calm down, doing his best to distract himself, think about something else. He’d be alright. He was going to get out of here. He was going to see Pepper again, and Rhodey, and hell, even Steve probably. Despite everything – despite, even, his drunken intentions – he was going to make it out of here alive. All because of a man he once would’ve attacked with no hesitation.

            “I cannot believe,” began Tony slowly, in between deep breaths, “that you went with _Total Eclipse of the Heart_ over _I Need a Hero_. Seriously.” He breathed deeply, watching Bucky. Bucky only responded with a dark glance his way. “Missed opportunity there.”

            For half a second, Tony really thought he was going to shake a real smile out of Bucky; but then all relief dropped out of Bucky’s gaze, and whipped around to the assassin a half-second before Tony could begin to process what was happening; through bloodied, broken teeth, the assassin leered up, barely conscious, and Tony realized there was a gun in his hand.

            “ _Hail…HYDRA_ …”

            There was a _bang_ , at the same moment Bucky shouted, “ _No_!” and Tony closed his eyes.

            He’d been so close. Pepper’s face flashed behind his eyes, and Rhodey’s. He hoped they’d be okay.

            But the shot did not come, and the bullet did not strike: when Tony dared to open his eyes, wondering why he was not dead, he saw Bucky kneeling in front of him. Red-black blood dripped from an entry wound above Bucky’s right temple, the bullet lodged in his skull.

            His whole body shaking, Bucky dipped his hand into his belt and produced the single ball explosive he had left. Fighting to get to his feet, he managed to pull himself up, then dropped a knee into the assassin’s chest. His hand shot out, forcing fingers into the man’s mouth, then he armed the explosive, and shoved it underneath the man's tongue.

            “Hail this, asshole,” he spat.

            Bucky grabbed the man by the throat, planted his feet on either side of the body, and with all of his strength, he lifted the assassin into the air and threw him out the open trap door above them; the blast rang out with enough power to shake the whole panic room, rumbling sounds of rock and dirt collapsing above them. A pile of dust and rubble fell through the open trapdoor, but the opening was quickly covered by rocks, closing it up.

            Bucky staggered backwards, clutching his bleeding head. Tony pulled himself to his feet, reaching out to catch the other man before he fell, slowly, gracefully, the arc of his body curving as he collapsed. Tony caught him, lowering Bucky down gently to the ground, his eyes unfocused, blood streaming from the bullet wound in his head.

            “ _Dammit_ , Barnes,” cursed Tony, cradling Bucky, pressing one metal hand over the gushing wound from his head; it didn’t help at all, of course, but it was the only thing he could do. “We almost had an out,” he said, bitterly, nodding at the blocked opening above them. “But you had to go and be a hero.”

            It seemed like Bucky tried to reply, but his eyes started to roll back into his head, unconsciousness setting in.

            “No, no,” said Tony urgently, shaking the other man. “Hey, hey, hold on. Hold on, I’m gonna figure something out, that’s what I do – come on, Barnes, you said you weren’t going to let some HYDRA son of a bitch waste you, don’t you dare check out on me-” Tony held Bucky’s body, then slapped him – gently – across the face. “Come on, James!” he said, his voice refusing to echo in the tiny room. “Come on! _We’re not gonna die here_ , remember!”

            Bucky’s head lolled limply in Tony’s arms. His lips moved, but made no sound for a moment. Tony’s grip tightened on him. Finally, Bucky managed to draw a shaky breath, the blood from his head cascading down his face, turning Tony’s suit and the floor beneath the rich crimson red of oxygenated blood. A tiny gasp escaped Bucky’s lips.

             “…m’name is…Bucky…”

            Tony held the Winter Soldier helplessly in his lap as he lay dying, and even through the visceral horror and fear, a weak smile managed to fight his way onto his face. “ _Bucky_ ,” he repeated, his voice very light. “How do you even get that out of James? Sounds like a stupid nickname a guy really should grow out of after he goes to war. Never liked Jim? Jimmy? Jimbo?”

            Cradled in Tony’s arms, Bucky ceased to move. His eyes fluttered shut. But the wound in his head still pumped blood, which Tony took as a good sign: it meant his heart was still beating. But if the blood continued to flow, it’d kill him in a manner of minutes, and exsanguination was an ugly way to go.

            Something condensed in Tony’s chest, and solidified, and his mind went to work. He straightened his back, holding Bucky’s head elevated above his heart. “Alright,” began Tony, glancing up above them, then opening a panel on his forearm to examine what little power the suit had left. “Alright. You’re the same breed as Cap, right? Super-soldier, magical mystical regeneration and healing abilities and all that? Yeah. Pretty sure. And Steve can take a hell of a beating, buddy, so…” Tony inhaled deeply, the breath shaking on its way out. “So let’s find out what you can take, huh?”

            Extending one metal-covered finger, Tony pressed it against the wound in Bucky’s head, blocking the blood flow. A small, bright light exploded from his fingertip, igniting Bucky’s blood with a burst of flame and heat, closing the wound.

            “Okay,” breathed Tony, pulling his hand away to inspect the cauterized entry wound. “Okay. Come on.” He gently slapped at Bucky’s face. “Oh, shit, okay.” He stared down at Bucky. His own heartbeat felt rough and irregular, like it was liable to give out just as much as Bucky’s was. “So our guy,” he said tightly, forcing himself to speak. He gestured above them, to the other side of the steel ceiling, where the assassin had exploded, “had a way down here, somehow. I guess digging up graves is a common enough HYDRA inconvenience that they built a special device for it, or something, I don’t know. But there’s a chance some of that held up, not the whole thing, just enough for a couple weak spots. Spots,” he said, although Bucky was no longer responsive, and Tony couldn’t even use the blood to tell if he was alive anymore, “that I just might be able to blast through.”

            There was a profound silence in the little panic room. Trembling, Tony lowered his face, holding his ear just above Bucky’s mouth.

            Despite all odds, Bucky was still breathing.

            “Okay,” sighed Tony. Tucking his arms around Bucky’s midriff – which was quite the stretch, _damn_ , the man was built like a brick shithouse – Tony pulled Bucky up to a mostly upright position. “This would be a lot easier if you were conscious,” he said. Bucky, as Tony had expected, did not reply.

            Tony dragged Bucky over so they stood just below the open trap door, kicking rocks out of his way as he went.

            “Alright, kid,” he muttered, glancing at Bucky’s head laying uselessly on his metal shoulder. “If we die here, that one’s totally on me.” He paused, then added, “Although you shouldn’t’ve blown it up in the first place. That definitely complicated things. Anyway.” Tony shook his head, holding Bucky tight to the suit, then looked up.

            He held up his right hand, wishing he had the helmet to cover his face. The scarlet color of the suit masked how much blood Bucky had lost, but Tony was not optimistic. Half of Bucky’s face was stained a dark, deadly red-black, blood matting in his tangled hair.

            “I really wish I had a cool one-liner to drop right now,” said Tony, to no one. “I kind of feel like this would be easier if I had a cool one-liner to do it with.”

            There was silence in the tomb of the panic room, so Tony just said, “Alright, let’s go,” and a bright, pulsing blast erupted from his extended right hand, sending an eruption of rock and earth away from them; holding Bucky tightly, Tony activated the thrusters on the bottom of his boots, and they shot upwards, through grinding, settling rock, crushing in on them, teetering above them before Tony blasted it away with a laser from his mechanical hand.

            He kept his hand clenched tightly, careful to keep Bucky close to his metal suit and blast away anything that got too close to crushing him against Tony’s armor. He could not see through the falling dust, which he closed his eyes against; he could barely breathe, but after the near-suffocation in the panic room, he figured, it would just be an embarrassment if the dust did him in now. It felt as though they were smashing through solid rock for half an hour, fighting for every inch they gained, and it was anyone’s guess which was going to fail first, the laser or the thrusters, until Tony felt the world slow then begin to stop around him as he began to sink, gravity working against him, and the thrusters dropped out from underneath him. With a grinding shout, he threw his legs forward and his shoulders backwards, wedging himself in place, ten feet or halfway up the tunnel – he had no way of knowing.

            Clutching something tightly in his right fist, he rerouted all power to the metal glove, launched it off his hand, and watched it battle its way upwards, slicing through solid rock.

            Chunks of dirt and rock fell back down below, and Tony locked a metal arm up in place, doing his best to hold back the groaning of half a mountain desperate to slide down into the abyss below, and bury them.

            The earth above them groaned and rumbled, as if in protest of the two men stuck halfway up its gullet, and then it all shuddered to a halt. Tony held Bucky against the suit in darkness, in terrible silence, and with no certainty that anyone would come to find them at all.

            Three feet and eight inches above them, an empty robotic fist wiggled out a crack between massive boulders and let out a gentle _phut_ as its power died, and it fell onto the concrete floor of the bunker. The metal fingers slowly loosened. A tiny metal object, blinking red, fell out from the thing’s palm.

\----

            A dozen miles away, Sam flew low against the mountainside, searching for any indication at all of a secret safehouse of any kind that Tony, and therefore Bucky, might’ve retreated to.

            Then, suddenly, a sleek, rhythmic beeping came from something tucked away in his pocket, and he twisted around to take it out, almost fumbling it in his cold, gloved hands.

            The screen on Bucky’s phone was filled by a miniature map, with a blinking red light coming pinpointing a spot a few miles away.

            Something crushed in Sam’s heart, then exploded with relief.

            He shouted into his comm, “ _I got a signal!_ ”


	14. Chapter 14

            When Rhodey blasted away the rocks to reveal Tony and Bucky curled up in a little pocket between solid stone, Steve was already carefully making his way towards them. “Take him, take him,” said Tony, nodding at Bucky and obviously exhausted. “He’s injured, it’s bad-”

            Steve lifted Bucky up off of Tony’s suit as if he weighed nothing, then laid him out on the floor of the bunker as Rhodey helped drag Tony out of the crevice. There was blood everywhere, on Bucky’s hands, splashed across his face, head, and neck, and Steve could not find the source. To Tony, as Rhodey kept him on his feet, Steve asked, “Is this blood his?”

            “Some of it, yeah,” answered Tony breathlessly. “He took a bullet to the head, I had to close it, he was bleeding out-”

            “Close it?” echoed Sam, his voice sharp.

            “I cauterized the wound,” said Tony, his legs giving out, relying half on Rhodey, half on the dysfunctional suit to keep him upright. “I did it clean, and I didn’t have a choice, he’d be dead right now-”

            Tony realized suddenly that he did not know for sure if Bucky was still breathing anymore at all, but Steve confirmed this by placing his ear at Bucky’s mouth, then nodding at Tony. A great swell of relief hit Tony, and he thought suddenly, bizarrely, that he might cry, but then he grabbed on to Rhodey and asked, “You brought a plane, right?” When Rhodey confirmed this, Tony continued, “Alright, there’s a, there’s a private hospital less than fifty miles out,” he pointed in a direction, “that way.”

            Confused, Rhodey glanced that direction, then began, “What’s – I’m not sure-”

            Blinking rapidly, Tony asked, “South – southwest. Is that not southwest?”

            “No, Tony-”

            “Okay, well,” said Tony, trying to shake off the disorientation, “it’s in the southwestern direction, woah, woah!” he called, pointing at Sam and Steve as they lifted Bucky by the shoulder and legs. “Be careful, he’s got a head injury, he might have a spinal injury too, I don’t know, I’m not really sure-”

            “Tony,” said Rhodey, as Steve and Sam ignored him. “Tony, hold on, focus. We got you out, are you okay? Are you hurt?”

            As they made their way out of the bunker and back into the Quinjet, Tony’s vision faded in and out of focus, and he thought it may partly be because he was still hungover, but then, when Rhodey sat him down and peered in his eyes with a bright light, it occurred to him he might have a concussion from the falling rocks. They were in the air before Tony managed to push Rhodey away, looking back to where Bucky was lain out, Sam methodically checking his vitals as Steve stood over his body, one hand resting protectively on his shoulder.

            “Who shot him?” asked Natasha, from the pilot’s seat.

            There was a short silence, and then Tony realized everyone was looking at him.

            “The – uh – the assassin,” he said. “The HYDRA guy. Bucky knew who he was, but he knew Russian, he said those trigger words and everything but for some reason, somehow they didn’t work-”

            Tony saw how Steve’s expression tightened at this, deeply, bone-shatteringly sad. As if he were alone with Bucky on the jet, Steve lowered his face against Bucky’s, pressing his lips on the side of his cheek, and whispered something so quiet, so intimate, that none of them could hear.

            “Where is the assassin?” pressed Rhodey. “Where’d he go?”

            Tony looked with wide eyes at Rhodey, then at the rest of them.

            “Bucky killed him,” he said.

            There was a beat’s pause, and then Tony added, “It was, like…as far as deaths go, it super poetic, he nailed that one-liner and stuck a bomb in his mouth, like, if that’s not the best metaphor for how that _Hail HYDRA_ crap is a ticking time-bomb before one of us gets to you, then I don’t know what-”

            “Okay,” said Rhodey, reaching out to put his hand on the side of Tony’s face With the other hand, he took out a small cell phone. “Okay, I think we get it.”

            From Bucky’s side, Sam called, “Nat, hurry up!”

            “I’m getting us there as fast as this bird can, Sam.”

            Returning Rhodey’s touch, Tony asked, “How’d you find us? The tracker?”

            With a nod, Rhodey said, “We knew you were in the area, and Barnes left a phone at your old ski lodge. We found you when it lit up.”

            Tony made a face and asked, with some degree of disbelief, “You took them to the ski chalet?” He glanced out at the others, blinked out of sync once more, and asked suspiciously, “Did you tell them about that time we hooked up too? Because,” he raised his voice, casting a look at the others, “I was legal at the time, totally kosher-”

            “Tony,” said Rhodey, with a little laugh; he held up a phone in his other hand, offering it to Tony. “I think there’s someone else who wants to hear from you.”

            On the phone’s flat screen it said, _Calling… Pepper Potts_ , and Tony took it, then asked, “You want me to tell her too? I mean, she already knows, you know, she’s done her thing too, odds are we probably are both bi – hey, together we make one whole – _honey_ ,” he said, as Pepper picked up the phone, “hi, yeah, it’s good to hear your voice too-”

            As Natasha pushed the plane faster, Steve looked up at Sam. Voice low, he asked, “How is he?”

            Sam regarded Bucky for a moment. He leaned over his body and said, to Steve, “Tony’s right, he had to close the wound or else Bucky’d be dead by now. But,” he added, “that means there’s a bullet trapped inside his head right now, building pressure on his brain. Which is not good.”

            Steve watched Sam, holding on to Bucky’s shoulder tightly. “But we’ll get him to a hospital, right? They can treat him right away.”

            “Sure,” answered Sam, with a shrug. “But he needed an OR twenty minutes ago, Steve.”

            Something sunk deeply into Steve’s stomach, so abruptly that he thought, at first, that it was the lurching of the plane. “So he’s not okay, is what you’re saying.”

            “I’m saying if he were a regular human being,” said Sam, “he’d be dead by now.” He paused, regarding Steve, the expression on his face hard but unreadable. “But he isn’t a regular human being,” he continued, voice softening. “And I can’t tell you how many times you’ve survived shit that would’ve killed anybody else. So he’s got a chance, Steve. But right now, all we can do is pray.”

            Steve let out a long, exhausted breath through his nose, then he reached down to take Bucky’s hand. The blood there was still slick but Steve didn’t appear to notice. He just held onto Bucky tightly, and took Sam’s advice.

            When they got to the hospital, Tony went in first, dispensing demands and instructions as only a multi-billionaire could. Bucky was in the operating room within minutes, surgeons slicing into his head to assess the extent of injury, and see what they could do.

            In another room, Rhodey helped Tony manually remove the suit. Doctors checked him for a concussion, but determined he wasn’t at risk from anything more than superficial injuries. They recommended Rhodey keep him awake for a while, and to take it easy while his body healed the numerous bruises, but he was otherwise unharmed.

            They returned to an observation room adjacent to the operating theater, where Steve and Natasha stood at the window. Sam had taken a seat, hands clasped together and head hanging. Tony drew up beside Steve, who kept his eyes fixed on the surgeons’ work on the man before them.

            “How is he?” asked Tony.

            Steve shook his head. Natasha answered for him. “Too soon to tell,” she answered. “But he’s still breathing, so there’s reason to be optimistic.”

            Tony nodded. On the operating table, Bucky seemed strangely small, so helpless it felt to Tony somehow deeply indecent, as if he shouldn’t be watching this. A muscle in Steve’s jaw jumped. The sight of his best friend laid out on a medical table brought a very different memory to mind, for him.

            From his seat at the side of the room, Sam looked up. “What happened?” he asked lowly. “How did he find you? And how did the assassin get there? What did he want? And why is it that Bucky ended up with a bullet in his head, and you’re A-OK?”

            Before the window, Tony didn’t answer this right away. Beside him, he felt Steve glance at him, and had a moment of profound smallness, as he did every time he was out of the suit around a battle-tested Captain America.

            Then Tony glanced back at Sam. “Too many questions,” he said. He pointed at his head. “I got a concussion, remember?”

            “Fine,” said Steve quietly. “Let’s start with one. What did the assassin want?”

            Tony dug into his pocket, then produced a pair of glasses. “He wanted these.”

            Steve’s frown deepened as he looked at the glasses, then back up at Tony. “And what are those?”

            “It’s a – personal therapy device,” answered Tony, truthfully. He regarded the glasses bitterly, holding them between the thumbs and forefingers of both his hands. “It was meant that way, anyway. I sunk thirteen million dollars into being able to put these babies on, and project all my angst onto a wall, because I figured if I could go back and proverbially change what happened, at least in my own head, it’d help me process everything. Keep me from sinking back into a pit of depressive despair.”

            He flashed Steve a bitter smile.

            “Obviously, it didn’t work,” he said. “And obviously I’ve secretly got the mind of a supervillain. I mean, come on, first Ultron, and now this? I have a problem,” he declared. He cocked his head slightly. “Not that that’s news.”

            In his hands, he took hold of the glasses by lenses, and cracked them in half.

            “There,” he said, holding them up. “Not a problem anymore.”

            Behind him, Rhodey let out a little moan, then clunked over to him, reaching out to take the glasses. “Tony,” he said, his voice pained. “This technology was going to pioneer new cognitive therapeutic techniques for sufferers of PTSD…”

            Tony blinked at his friend, letting him take the glasses. “Oh,” he said. “Well. To be fair, I can build another one.”

            Rhodey let out another groan, holding the mangled glasses gingerly in his hands.

            From his seat, Sam asked, “Why would a HYDRA assassin want a piece of therapeutic tech?”

            “Because it can be weaponized,” answered Natasha, glancing back at him from across the room. “Anything that sinks that deep into the mind can be used to control it.” She spared one pitiless glance for Tony, and added, “ _I_ could’ve told you that.”

            “Well, you didn’t,” Tony pointed out, “so who’s really at fault here?”

            “How did Bucky find you?” asked Steve, looking sidelong at Tony. His arms were crossed defensively before his chest. “And the assassin, too. What was that place?”

            Tony looked away from Bucky’s prone body, glancing sideways at Steve. They were waiting on him, he could tell, and he knew that he had an answer to this question, and he also knew that it was an answer he didn’t want to say, because as soon as they heard it, he would be forced to think about it too.

            But then he looked back at Bucky. He said, “It belonged to my father. He built it sometime in the ‘50s as a fallout shelter in the event of a nuclear holocaust.”

            Tony refused to look at Steve, but he felt something change in the room, as if some silent alarm had been tripped, or the temperature had dropped three degrees. Steve looked away from Tony, back out through the glass panel to where Bucky was fighting for his life. Lowly, Steve asked, “Howard ever take you there?”

            “No,” answered Tony shortly. “He abandoned it in the ‘70s. I kept it on reserve as a safehouse, but this was the first time I’d ever actually been in the place.”

            Nobody said anything, but Tony didn’t need them to. He knew what they were thinking.

            “Hey,” said Tony, turning around, away from the glass panel. “You three need to go.”

            A frisson of something went through the room, and Sam and Steve looked around at him with something almost like a challenge in their eyes.

            “I’m serious,” Tony said, doing his best to demonstrate this. “I can cover for Barnes. He’s not as recognizable as the rest of you, and I’ve got the money to stop certain people from asking questions.” He looked around at Sam, Steve, and Natasha. “I can’t do that for the rest of you. You’re still technically criminals.”

            “Yeah,” said Sam, getting to his feet. “And remind me again who did that to us?”

            “You did,” replied Tony stonily, looking up at him. “There were laws, you broke them. I’m not saying the laws are always right, but I am saying they _were_ laws, and even I don’t have the kind of power to make that go away overnight. Hey.” He held out his hands, in what he hoped looked like a conciliatory gesture. “I’ll talk to some people. See what I can do. But the longer you stay here, the more likely it is the US government is going to show up right here and try to take you in. And in that case, I _won’t_ be able to protect Barnes. So for his sake,” he said, looking back at Steve, “you should go.”

            Steve didn’t look at Tony. “What if he dies on that table?”

            Tony looked back out through the glass. “Personally, I think it looks like it’s going pretty well.”

            Steve still didn’t budge.

            With a pointed little sigh, Tony went to the wall, slamming his fist down on an intercom button. “What do you think, McDreamy?” he asked, his voice buzzed into the OR. “Our boy gonna make it?”

            The surgeon didn’t look up, but one of the assisting nurses looked up, then displayed a thumbs up sign towards the viewing window. Tony held out his hands but, mercifully, did not say, _Told you so_ out loud. Steve still didn’t move.

            Tony lowered his voice. “I’m not saying this to be cruel,” he said. He pointed into the OR. “That man in there just saved my life. He took a bullet that was meant for me. Believe me, I want to protect him, but I can’t ensure that with you here.”

            Steve gave a small shake of his head, barely perceptible.

            “I’m sorry,” added Tony. “As soon as we can, I’ll have him moved somewhere secure, and then you can see him. But for right now, I’m telling you, you can’t stay here.”

            “Steve,” said Natasha. She moved to his side, tucking one of her arms in his. She leaned her head against his shoulder, tearing her eyes away from Bucky on the operating table. “He’s right. We need to get out of here.”

            “Nat-”

            Natasha reached up, on her tiptoes, and kissed Steve on the cheek. “I’ll drag you out of here unconscious, if you make me,” she told him, with a shrug. “But I’d rather we do this the easy way.”

            Warily, Sam looked in between Tony and Rhodey. “She’s got a point,” he added. “I know you’re ready to throw down again, Steve, but I’d rather not go three rounds in a hospital. We’ll get Bucky back when he’s better.”

            Steve stood very stiffly, even with Natasha’s arm around his. He glanced back at Sam. “So you’re saying you trust Tony?”

            “Ooh,” said Tony, with a grimace. “Ouch.”

            “I’m saying I’m ready to take the lesser of two evils, in this case,” Sam replied frankly. “Bucky’s in more danger if we stay.”

            Steve gave one more look around, as if begging for anyone else to back him up – and then he relented. To Tony, he murmured, “Fine. Take his phone. Use that to get in touch with us.”

            Sam planted the phone in Tony’s hand. “The passcode is 09-22-19,” he told him. “If you forget it, just look up his sister’s birthday.”

            Steve looked once at Tony, then back at Bucky through the glass viewing panel, and then he headed out of the room. Sam nodded at Tony and at Rhodey, then left as well, Natasha at his arm.

            Unwilling to go too far away from the hospital, Steve insisted they stay local, so Nat piloted the Quinjet back to the bunker in the mountains. Snow had already begun to pile up inside the entrance, where Rhodey had blown away the door. Sam went in first, exploring the place, searching through all the rooms they hadn’t had time to look through when they were there rescuing Bucky and Tony.

            Steve only got a little ways in. He stopped, something in the corner of the large entrance space catching his eye. Nat watched him, saw his whole body tense, and followed him as he crossed the space, coming to a stop before a broken mess of machinery. A metal chair lay on the ground uselessly, surrounded by a series of screens and tools that reminded Steve of Siberia, of a seat placed confidently in the center of six cryochambers. He knew what this was.

            Behind him, Natasha saw this as well, and her heart too ached for Bucky. She made no move to pull Steve away from the mess of machinery.

            “You said,” began Steve hollowly, addressing Natasha, “that the conditioning which prevented him from telling us about this place was much more complex. You said you didn’t think it would’ve been around when HYDRA first got into his mind.”

            With no reply, Natasha just cocked her head. She knew where this was going, and she was ready to allow Steve to take it all the way there.

            “Whoever did that to him,” continued Steve, speaking slowly now, “did it much later. And it has nothing to do with the Winter Soldier. They didn’t care about using him as a weapon, all they cared about was him keeping this place a secret. So nobody would ever know he’d been here. So nobody would ever find out about this place.”

            In the quiet of the bunker, Natasha heard the sound of Sam’s footsteps as he sidled up to her, exchanging a glance with her. Maybe Sam hadn’t figured it out yet. She didn’t know, and she wasn’t about to interrupt.

            Steve turned his head slightly, so that he wasn’t quite looking at them, but they both could see the side of his face, one eye cast down at the ground.

            “This place belonged to Howard Stark,” he said quietly.

            At this, Sam looked in between Natasha and Steve. “What?” he asked, in disbelief. “You think Tony’s dad was in on the Winter Soldier?”

            Steve looked away, back at the broken seat before him. “I don’t know if he was in on it,” he said. “But from where I’m standing, it looks like he found out. And he tried to cover it up.”

            Behind him, Natasha shook her head, searching for something to say. “Look,” she began. “Sometimes…it’s not that cut-and-dried. Maybe he did find something out, but this is HYDRA we’re talking about. Maybe there was nothing he could do. Maybe he had to do it to protect himself and his family.”

            “He knew,” murmured Steve. “He knew about Bucky. For twenty years of his life, Howard knew, and he didn’t do a damn thing.” He dropped his gaze, shaking his head. “I should’ve known,” he said, his voice slightly louder now. “When he recognized Bucky on that tape, I should’ve known something was wrong right then. I didn’t think anything of it, but they met – what, two, three times? Bucky never worked downstairs, and Howard was never in the field. Hell, _I_ barely recognized Bucky, and you’re telling me Howard Stark sees him fifty years after the last time they met, and he knows him by _name_?”

            Steve cut off abruptly, shaking his head.      

            “Steve,” said Natasha. There was some intent to pacify in her voice, but not much. “He was a founding member of S.H.I.E.L.D.”

            “Yeah,” answered Steve, without looking around. “That’s what scares me. If Howard Stark knew about the Winter Soldier for that long, and he did nothing,” he glanced back at them, his eyes heavy with a breathtaking fear, “…who else knew?”

            Neither Sam nor Natasha had an answer to this. After a beat, Steve looked back at the machines before him. “Give me a second,” he muttered, reaching up to rub with one hand at his eyes. Natasha nodded, and took Sam’s hand, and headed for the entrance of the bunker.

            The two retreated just outside, and Natasha leaned against the cold mountainside, her arms wrapped around herself for warmth. Sam looked out at the mountains – they were beautiful, in the light of day. The white snow sparkled in the sunlight, like a layer of sugar crystallizing across the slopes.

            Without looking around at Natasha, Sam asked, “You think Tony knows?”

            Natasha seemed to consider this for a second. “Not for nothing, Sam,” she replied, cocking an eyebrow, “but the man is a genius. I don’t think he knew before this, if that’s what you’re asking, no. But he’d have to be willfully ignorant if he hasn’t figured it out by now.”

            This did make Sam turn around. “If there’s anyone out there likely to be _willfully ignorant_ -”

            “Tony didn’t have the greatest relationship with his father,” Natasha pointed out. “If he can get past the blind instinct to deny it, I don’t think it’ll be too hard for him to believe.”

            Sam didn’t answer this; like Natasha, he had never known Howard Stark, and so there was no real sting of intimate betrayal like that which Steve felt. Still. It was hard not to feel a sense of intense injustice, that seemingly good men might’ve known, and done nothing.

            Glancing back at the entrance to the bunker, Sam asked, “Has he been in there on his own a little too long?”

            Natasha looked up at Sam, then nodded. “I think he has.”

            Inside the bunker, Steve still stood before the machines, imagining what had been done to Bucky here so many years ago, imagining the shame and rage Bucky must have felt, when he knocked this seat to the ground, and, worst of all, he imagined Howard Stark installing a kill switch into Bucky’s brain, ready to send the Winter Soldier to the grave rather than implicate himself in his imprisonment.

            It wasn’t until he heard the footsteps behind him that Steve realized his hand was still at his face, trying to cover up tears he didn’t want to admit. There was no point crying over the past, no point crying over Bucky and no point at all crying over Howard Stark, the man was sick, he was a traitor, he was a goddamn _animal_ -

            Sam got to him first. “C’mere,” he muttered, and he put his arms around Steve, holding him tightly. It was not very befitting of Captain America, Steve thought bitterly, but he returned the embrace, pressing his face into Sam’s shoulder and trying to stay silent, even as his shoulder shook with cries. Behind him, Natasha wrapped her arms around his strong torso, laying her head against his back.

            They held onto him, tightly, until the moment passed and his breaths became peaceful once more.

\----

            In a hospital some ways outside Denver, Tony Stark sat by a large window. Before him, a man lay in bed, head shaved from his brain surgery, hooked up to a dozen different machines. The sun shone in from the window, illuminating the snowy landscape below. They were some floors up, in a private room, and despite the cold climate outside the light of the rising sun filled the room with a syrupy golden light and a warmth strong enough to leave Tony feeling uncomfortable and on edge.

            He got to his feet and closed the blinds. For a moment he didn’t move, then he glanced around at the man on the hospital bed. At the foot of his bed, his medical chart listed him as a John Doe, a poor innocent victim Iron Man had picked up on a classified mission. Rhodey had flown out to intercept the inevitable U.S. government intervention, and Pepper was currently on a private jet, which would be landing at Denver International shortly.

            If the surgeons had noticed anything impossible about their patient’s physiology, they had said nothing. They might have said something, but Tony arranged for a very generous thank you to all of the staff involved, and such thank yous often had the added benefit of making sure they kept their mouths shut.

            Tony wandered over to the man’s bedside, his hands in his pockets. The broken glasses sat by Bucky’s bedside, along with a hospital meal that Tony didn’t think Bucky was going to wake up in time to eat. He picked up the water bottle, twisted off the cap, and took a long draught for himself.

            When he lowered the bottle, letting out a satisfied breath, he glanced down at the Winter Soldier’s unconscious face. If there was ever a perfect time to kill the most accomplished assassin in world history, it would be now, as he lay unconscious and drugged to the gills.

            Instead Tony just took another drink of water.

            Then he said, “They left a fragment of the bullet in your head. They said it was riskier to try and get it out. Now, personally, I’m a huge fan of leaving the teeth of the dog that bit you inside your body, but I get the feeling you’ll be okay with it too. Seems like a pretty metal thing to do. And the Winter Soldier seems pretty damn metal, no pun intended.”

            With mild interest, Tony removed the lid from the tray of hospital food, then made a face. “You got green Jell-O,” he told Bucky. “Objectively the worst color. I think hospitals do that on purpose, to try and get your ass out of here as soon as possible.”

            He took another drink of water, looking uncomfortable.

            For a moment he stood there by Bucky’s bed, eyes down at the floor.

            Then he looked up.

            “Contrary to what your boy in red white and blue may tell you,” he said, looking down at Bucky unhappily, “I’m not dumb, you know. I guess I can be a little hard-headed at times, but, hey, so can he. Anyways.”

            Tony ran his hand through his hair.

            “I’m not sure I believe anyone really deserves to die,” he said, abruptly. “I mean, you try not to, in my business, or else it all gets real self-righteous real quick, and you have to stop yourself before somebody ends up having to stop you.”

            His mouth twisted slightly, as if fighting against the words on the tip of his tongue.

            “But,” he began. He flexed the fingers of his free hand, then took another drink of water, finishing the bottle. “But,” he continued with a sigh, crushing the empty water bottle and tossing it towards the trash. “When you killed my dad – not my mom, she was innocent and I’m still pissed at you for that, and you specifically, you gotta give me that.” He looked down at Bucky, exhaling deeply through his nose. “But when you came for him…”

            Tony shook his head. He turned away from the bed, returning to the window. He peeked out the blinds at the early sun, the clear skies, and the harsh white of the snow reflecting dazzling sunlight.

            Coldly, Tony said, “I hope he thought you were there for revenge.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone!! Thanks so much for reading!!! I really appreciate the comments and kudos you've left, they really make my day. I wrote this fic for myself because I was unsatisfied with the ending of Civil War, and I'm so happy and flattered that it resonates with some of you.
> 
> If I may, I'd like to ask that you try and rec this fic to your friends/followers? I put a lot of heart into it and would love to share the love, haha. Thanks so much again!
> 
> One more teensy baby epilogue chapter!


	15. EPILOGUE

            It was late wintertime in New York, and the sky was the cold, harsh gray of frozen steel. Sunlight dripped down onto the earth below, but it was not enough to melt the layer of frost which had crystallized on the grass overnight. A man stood before two graves, his one remaining hand in his pocket.

            Around him, the cemetery was mostly empty. An old woman pushed her walker down one of the paved paths, and a mother held the hands of two of her young children, reprimanding them for their disrespectful behavior as they headed out towards the street. It was an urban cemetery, nestled tightly into a corner between Brooklyn and Queens. Back in the ‘30s it hadn’t seemed so completely out of place: but eighty years later, the place was impossibly incongruous with its surroundings. A big, bustling city, inlaid with its own small, peaceful city of the dead. Something about that was beautiful, Bucky thought, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was.

            He’d walked an hour out to get here. He could’ve taken the J train, which was basically in the same place he remembered it, except there were different stops now. But he had nothing else to do, and the walk wasn’t bad. There were lots of things he recognized. Plenty that he didn’t, but he didn’t think that was because he couldn’t remember. Things had just changed, in all the years it had been. Details were different, although broad strokes were the same. On the way there, he’d stopped at a florist; he didn’t know much about flowers, so he just got a dozen roses, which a nice young woman with a piercing in her lip and tattoos up her arms arranged for him. Her gaze never lingered on his missing arm or the stitches in his head, which he thought was very polite.

            As she was ringing him up, she very casually asked, “Are you a vet?”

            He blinked at her, not quite understanding. “What?”

            “A military veteran,” she clarified, glancing up at him. “We have a discount.”

            “Oh,” said Bucky. It took him a second to process this, and to realize that he was. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I am.”

            She didn’t ask him for any proof of this, just gave him a short once-over, her gaze lingering for the first time at the missing arm. She gave him the discount. Bucky left with a nice arrangement of roses, which he laid at the base of one of the gravestones. It would’ve felt wrong to come here empty-handed.

            As he stood before the graves, a wide scarf tucked into his collar, someone approached him from behind. Bucky glanced around; when he saw who it was, his face broke out in a smile.

            “Hey,” said Steve, greeting his friend with a tight hug. Bucky returned the embrace, lopsided as it was with only one arm. When they pulled away, Steve reached up to put his hand on his friend’s head, skimming his thumb gently just above the stitches. “It still hurt?”

            Bucky shook his head. “Nah.”

            “How long you got the stitches for?”

            “Getting ‘em out on Friday.”

            Steve held Bucky by the arms, watching him worriedly. When a scan up and down his body betrayed no obvious wounds, he gave a slight cock of his head in defeat. “You look good,” he said. “You feel okay?”

            “I feel fine,” answered Bucky, grinning at Steve’s concern. It was such a role reversal from their childhood and adolescence, like something in a funhouse mirror. “Think I look real good, actually,” he added pointedly, sweeping a hand across his face and his short hair, what little had regrown since it was shorn off for surgery. “A clean shave really does wonders.”

            Steve, who had grown out his beard and wore a baseball cap low over his eyes to try and keep a low profile, returned Bucky’s smirk. “Yeah.” He paused, looking slightly pained. “Tony treating you alright?”

            “I don’t see a lot of him,” replied Bucky, with a shrug. “Lot of doctors.”

            “They’re okay?”

            “He said they came on Sam’s recommendation.”

            Steve made a face as if to admit this, but reluctantly. “But they’re on Tony’s payroll.”

            “So is everyone on the planet, apparently,” Bucky pointed out. “Is it true he got the Accords annulled?”

            At this, Steve took half a step back, considering his answer. He glanced for the first time at the grave before them. “Well,” he began, “the way I heard it, a private team of lawyers found a couple clauses that gave the U.S. the sole power of deployment, and a couple other members of the U.N. protested. Members like Wakanda.” He glanced up at Bucky. “The lawyers probably came from Tony’s legal team, but I wouldn’t be able to be standing here right now if it weren’t for King T’Challa.”

            Bucky looked mildly surprised at this, eyebrows raised. “T’Challa?”

            Steve nodded. “He reached out to me. Seemed happy to hear you’re okay.”

            “That’s good,” muttered Bucky, nodding slightly. “Good. You talk to him again, you tell him thanks from me, alright?”

             A smile lit up Steve’s face. “I will.”

            They both looked at the twin graves before them. Above Bucky’s roses, the name _Rebecca Stern Proctor_ was engraved in stone. Her birthday, the twenty-second of September, 1919, was listed, as well as a date of death some thirty years previously.

            Bucky gestured at the double grave. “She remarried,” he said. “Makes sense, I suppose. She was widowed pretty young, and had a baby to take care of.” A wry smile slipped onto his face, and he shook his head. “Kept both their names, and not her own,” he said, gesturing towards her last names. “Guess that marked the end of the Brooklyn Barneses, huh?”

            Steve watched his friend. “Hey,” he said, digging into his pocket, “Natasha knows some people at the Smithsonian, and we asked about the exhibit they had a while ago – you know, they had lots of real stuff, stuff we had back then. They had a copy of this,” he pulled an envelope out of his pocket, then delicately slipped his hand into it, removing its contents, “but we got in touch with the owner of the original. She didn’t mind parting ways with it, under the circumstances.”

            He held out a small, worn black-and-white photograph. The edges were tattered and torn up, and Bucky took it from Steve, his mouth hanging open.

            “Oh, jeez,” he murmured, hanging on to the photo tightly. A twenty-one-year-old Rebecca Barnes smiled out at him, holding her infant daughter in her lap. On the back, written in faded ink in his sister’s handwriting were the words, _Come home safe, your sister, Becca_. It was the same photograph Rebecca had sent him the first few months after he shipped out, and the one he had carefully kept in his belongings, where the other guys would keep letters from their girls back home. It must’ve been returned to her after his fall.

            Steve watched Bucky. “We got it from Rebecca’s granddaughter,” he said. “Rachel’s daughter. She’s a historian now, lectures at Columbia.” Bucky didn’t say anything. Steve watched him. “She said she’d like to meet you, if you want.”

            Bucky closed his eyes. For a moment Steve wasn’t sure if he should hug Bucky again, or if Bucky needed a moment to grieve for his sister on his own. Then Bucky surprised Steve by opening his eyes again, and giving him a tight smile.

            “Thanks,” he said, his voice plain and honest. “Man, I can’t believe Becca held onto this. She always was kind of a sucker for stupid keepsakes, huh?”

            Steve gave a little laugh, then watched as Bucky moved forward and leaned down. He placed the photograph against the grave, carefully adjusting the roses to keep it held in place.

            “She should keep it,” he murmured, stepping back and admiring the photo and the flowers. “I don’t need a photograph to remember her.”

            With a swell of pride and love, Steve reached out to lay a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “She’d be happy that you made it out here to see her, pal.”

            Bucky returned the smile. Then something jolted into his expression and he said, “Oh, yeah-” and pulled away from Steve’s touch, leaning over to grab something he’d lain against the other headstone, the one that belonged to Rebecca’s husband. He held it out to Steve, who looked at it with surprise, holding his hands uncertainly above it.

            “Tony said to give this back to you,” he said, pushing the shield towards Steve. “He couldn’t do a lot about the scratches, he said we’d need to call T’challa for that.”

            Steve glanced down at the shield doubtfully. “You carried that the whole way here?”

             Bucky nodded. “A couple people asked me where I got it. They thought it was a toy or something.”

            “What’d you say?”

            “Tony said to tell them – Comic Con?”

            Steve laughed, bowing his head in approval. “Safe answer.” But he put his hand on the shield, pushing it back towards Bucky. “You’ve got the haircut and a missing arm,” he said. “You can get around without everybody knowing your name. I can’t, especially not if I’m holding onto that.”

            Bucky just watched him, unsure.

            “You keep it,” said Steve. “Just for now.”

            Slipping his arm into the handles of the shield, Bucky looked down at it. “I don’t know if I’m Captain America material,” he said, glancing up at Steve.

            “Hey.” Steve shrugged, spreading his arms out. “Some asshole looked at me in ’41 and thought I was Cap material, all five-feet and ninety pounds of me. So you never know.”

            A grin grew on Bucky’s face, and he nudged Steve jovially with the shield. “Nah,” he teased. “I always knew you had a calling.”

            “You tried to get me to stay at home and work in a factory.”

            “Yeah, well, I was hopin’ to God He wouldn’t send you out there, wasn’t I? You were so little,” said Bucky, and there was a hint of bittersweetness in his voice, like a regret which had never actually materialized, but rather stuck like a burr in the back of his throat, like potential energy for pain. “You wouldn’t have lasted a goddamn day on the front.”

            There was a pregnant pause, then Steve smiled at him. “I think I did pretty well for myself,” he said, unable to hold back a grin.

            Bucky held up the shield, wielding it in a pretend defensive pose. “You flew a plane into the ocean, Steve.”

            With a laugh, Steve began, “In my defense-”

            “No, no defense, admit it, that was the dumbest thing Captain America ever did – after singlehandedly breaking into a HYDRA compound to save my sorry ass, that is.”

            Taking hold of the shield with both hands, Steve laughed. “Hell, Buck, if you think you could do better,” he said, knocking on the shield, “I just told you to keep the shield, didn’t I?”

            From behind, the edges of which Steve still held with both hands, Bucky smiled at him almost shyly. Only the bright, dense metal separated them, and Steve smiled easily back at Bucky, warmth and relief in equal measures on his face.

            Then Bucky leaned forward, and he pressed his lips gently against Steve’s. To his credit, Steve did not seem surprised; he leaned in to it, very gently, until Bucky was the one to break their touch.

            He watched Steve curiously, a shadow of a smile on his face. “I’ve been wanting to do that since that helicopter in Berlin,” he mumbled. “But I didn’t know…if you still…”

            “I do,” muttered Steve, holding tightly on to the shield between them. “I still do.”

            There was a long pause between them, and then Bucky took the shield and replaced it on the carrier on his back. With his one hand, he took Steve’s, then headed away from the grave. “Tony’s talking about making me a new arm,” he said, lightly. “I want you to look at the designs, make sure it looks all right. I kind of want to keep the star,” he said, as they returned to the paved path through the cemetery, holding hands. “Think maybe you could turn it into a shield, or something?”

            “Maybe,” answered Steve, his fingers interlaced with Bucky’s. “Hey – can I ask you something?”

            “No, Steve,” sighed Bucky, with a sidelong smirk at him, “we’re not doin’ that here, it’s a goddamn graveyard. Have some respect.”

            “It’s not that,” replied Steve, rolling his eyes and bumping slightly against Bucky, as if to shame him for such an indecent suggestion. “If it’s alright, I wanted to ask about Natasha.”

            The pleased expression slid off Bucky’s face, and he looked down at the ground, watching the path before them. “What I know about that woman,” he began, taking his time, choosing his words very closely, “isn’t mine to tell, Steve. You should ask her.”

            Steve didn’t say anything at first. Then: “So you two have a history.”

            Bucky cocked his head. “Of a kind.”

            “You still have feelings for her?”

            This made Bucky stop, actually physically stop in the middle of the path, and look at Steve. There was confusion written across his brow, disbelief with a dawning tinge of realization, as if he suddenly understood what Steve was thinking.

            “No,” said Bucky, meeting Steve’s gaze intently. “Steve – I was part of a team that trained her. She was a kid when I first met her.”

            Steve watched him, something heavy in his eyes. “She knew your name.”

            “Yeah,” replied Bucky, with an indignant nod. “She was the only one of her class that did. I think that might’ve been a test, and she was the only one who passed it.”

            Steve began, “So she knew-”

            “She didn’t know who I was,” answered Bucky, shaking his head. “And she didn’t know what they’d done to me.”

            This quieted Steve’s roiling conscience, at least minimally.

            “Besides,” added Bucky pointedly, still holding Steve’s gaze, “even if she had known, there was nothing she could’ve done. She was a kid. More than that, she was a weapon. To be used. Just like me.”

            Steve tore his eyes away from Bucky’s, then ran a hand through his hair, unsettled. “Why does it feel like it’s a lot easier for you to forgive than it is for me?”

            Bucky looked at him for a moment, and then he let out a little laugh, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, and it was funny to him that Steve couldn’t see it. He squeezed Steve’s hand and headed down the path, towards the entrance to the cemetery.

            “Because you love me,” he said, grinning back at Steve, and Steve let Bucky pull him forward without protest. A warmth bloomed deep in Steve’s chest. Bucky was right.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And lo, it ends. Thank you so much to everyone who stuck around to read the whole thing! I really appreciate your kudos and amazing, thoughtful comments. 
> 
> Basically, this fic was a huge fix-it fic to get the MCU to the place I'd like it to be in the next few movies. #canon #confirmed Stucky is probably the biggest stretch, but I'd like to see the Sokovia Accords nullified, the beginning of Bucky!Cap, and Tony coming to terms with Bucky, Steve, and himself (because, let's face it - no matter if we're Team Cap or Team Iron Man, neither of them were totally 100% faultless in Civil War).
> 
> To be clear, I actually LOVE BuckyNat (as you may have picked up from earlier chapters) - tho I prefer it as it is in the comics. I think there's not enough development for it to be a thing in the MCU, and I'd prefer Stucky anyways.
> 
> This fic was a summer labor of love which was mainly written in defense and love of Bucky Barnes, who is far and away my fav MCU character. I hope you all have enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!


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